Sarah and the King
by Artemis J. Halk
Summary: A Labyrinth-twist to the classic fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast. Jareth uses Sarah's love for her father to get her back into the castle, but not is all as it seems. Purple hyacinths, primroses, and a copy of the "Language of Flowers".
1. Chapter 1

This story is rated T because Sarah ended up being a bit of a potty-mouth early on.

So, I'll admit right from the get-go that a Beauty and the Beast-themed Labyrinth fanfiction isn't all that original. In fact, the reason why I started to write this is because I read one such fic, and even though it was fairly decent, I found it to be… um… lacking, I guess you could say?

So, rather than wallow in my disappointments of the rather poorly-written bad ending, I decided that I'd just write my own.

This will have more themes from some of the older retellings of the tale, although there might be a few Disney references thrown in for good measure. Because Disney's version is still my favorite, even after all this time.

Also, because I know that it's going to cause a little bit of confusion, but since the Labyrinth wiki cites that Return to Labyrinth is canon, I will be using the canon name of Irene for the step-mother (who in the film was unnamed) over the fan-chosen name of Karen. I don't know why the fandom collectively decided that her name was Karen, but alright. (Although personally, if a character is unnamed, I usually tend to go with the name of the actor who played them, and I would have named her Shelley. But, that's just me.)

This has not been proofread, so if you spot any glaring errors, please let me know.

* * *

Prologue

"I just don't know what we're going to do."

"Shh, please dad, keep your voice down," Sarah Williams insisted. "Irene has only just put Toby to sleep. He's been having a hard enough time in school without having to worry about the fact that not only have you lost your job, but we're this close to losing the house, too." Sarah held her thumb and index finger a small increment apart.

Irene heaved a sigh, and ran a hand through her hair in frustration. Robert gave both his wife and his daughter an intense, morose look. "I worked hard to give you all a very comfortable life. But now, that's all falling apart."

"It'll be okay, dear," Irene whispered. She reached across the table and gently lay her hand on top of her husband's. "We'll just sell the house; we'll downsize. I can start to look for a job."

"Yeah. I'll get a job, too, dad," Sarah said.

"Sarah, you're only a year away from graduating," Robert said. "I don't want you to put off finishing, because then you never will."

"Dad, I don't think that you fully understand how grave that the situation is."

"Dammit, Sarah, I don't want you to ruin your life just because I managed to screw everything up for the rest of us!" Robert hissed at his only daughter.

"Dad, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I just sat by and did nothing while my family got turned out onto the street. I'll start looking for a job tomorrow, and there's nothing that you can do to stop me."

* * *

Chapter 1

The Williams family didn't think that they would have made it out from under their bad mortgage without somehow ending up living on the streets. But, after selling off most of their things and drastically downsizing, they found that, even though they missed the comforts that Robert's large salary as a defense lawyer had provided, they were able to get by.

But that doesn't mean that they all liked it.

"I miss my video games," Toby whined for what seemed like the hundredth time that rainy, Sunday afternoon.

"Shh, darling, come and play cards with me," Irene said as she shuffled the deck of cards.

"I'm tired of cards. I want to watch TV."

"We don't have a TV anymore, honey," Irene reminded her son.

"Well, not having video games sucks, but it's even worse not to even own a TV!" Toby exclaimed.

"Toby Conrad Williams!" Irene exclaimed. "Where in the world did you learn such foul language? Go to your room!" With a pout, the five year old turned from the room and marched slowly down the hall to the room that he shared with Sarah. Irene heaved a massive sigh and buried her head in her hands out of frustration.

"It'll be okay, Irene," Sarah said, although she wasn't quite certain if she even believed the words that came from her mouth. The two women sat at the table for a long while; Irene with her head still in her hands, and Sarah staring blankly out the window. The only noise that came from inside the house was the muffled sound of Robert talking in his bedroom.

Then, "Who's dad talking to?" Sarah asked, her voice low as if she was afraid of talking in a normal voice.

"I don't know, dear," Irene said with a sigh. She looked up at her step-daughter. "All he said was that it was important, and that he didn't want to be disturbed."

"Do you think that it could be a client?" Sarah asked. Her voice was flat, but Irene noted a hint of excitement in the young woman's eyes.

The older woman heaved a sigh; it wouldn't do to get Sarah's hopes up. "Nobody wants to hire your father as a lawyer anymore. Not after…" She broke off. It didn't need to be said, because all of the words had come out right when it had happened. They were all trying to put what they dubbed "The Incident" behind them; after all, dwelling on it and casting blame wouldn't get Robert either his job or clients back, so what was the point?

The phone in the kitchen clicked as Robert hung up the phone in his bedroom. A moment later, he came into the kitchen, all smiles. "Good afternoon. How are my two favorite women?" he asked.

"What was that about, dad?" Sarah asked.

"I've got some pretty good news," Robert told them.

"You're getting your job back?" Irene guessed.

"Yes!" Robert exclaimed.

"Honey! That's fantastic!" Irene gasped. She gave out a shout of glee as she jumped to her feet, and then she threw her arms around her husband.

"Well, nothing is settled yet, but Mr. Loughlin wants to see me first thing tomorrow morning," Robert said.

Robert told his family the details of what he and his former boss had talked about on the phone for close to ten minutes about.

"This is great, dad!" Toby said once his father was finished. "Being poor-"

"Toby!" Irene said sharply.

"I don't like being poor," the youngest Williams finished. "Can we get a TV?"

"Mr. Loughlin did mention a large bonus, so I think that it can be arranged!" Robert said with a hearty laugh. "But, a trip into town wouldn't be completed without buying presents for my two favorite women."

"Well, it has been a while since you last bought me any jewelry…" Irene said wistfully. Both of them missed the look of disdain on Sarah's face.

"Yes, of course. I would love nothing more than to be able to spoil you, Irene," Robert told his wife gently. Robert had been holding his wife's hand on top of the table, but then he leaned over and kissed her.

"Ew, gross," Toby said with a scowl. Sarah only just rolled her eyes.

"And what about you, Sarah?" Robert asked.

"I don't want anything," Sarah insisted.

"Don't be silly, Sarah. You've worked harder than the rest of us," Robert said. "You gave up your education and a chance at a much better future in order to help us." Sarah's face darkened; much like "The Incident", Sarah's education was something that they didn't like to bring up. "So of course I have to get you something."

Sarah sat for a long moment and contemplated this. If she didn't say anything, then her father might feel obligated to buy her something… something expensive and probably something that she didn't want or need. Like jewelry.

"I just… I just want a rose," Sarah said simply.

"A rose?" Toby exclaimed with surprise.

"Yes. I miss being able to buy flowers now that we're not in the city anymore," Sarah explained. "I just want a rose." There. It wasn't expensive, and while it would be beautiful for a few days, it would soon whither and die, and then Sarah could just throw it out.

"Fine. A rose for my sweet daughter," Robert agreed.

* * *

So the next morning, even before Irene had Toby ready for school, Robert kissed his wife, gave Sarah a hug, and set off into the city to try and see about getting his job back.

"I hope that everything goes okay," Sarah said as she watched her father's car pull away from the house.

"Don't be silly; Mr. Loughlin loved your father when he worked for him," Irene said. "Why would you say such a thing?"

"I don't know… I…" Absently, Sarah turned away from the window and rubbed her arms, as if she was chilled.

* * *

The meeting had not gone as Robert had hoped. In fact, he was even more depressed now than he had been after "The Incident". He didn't want to go home and give his family the troubling news. He'd taken his time in going over to the side of town where his family now lived, going as slow as possible on the surface streets, but then as he got closer to his home, he started to meander down streets that he'd never been down before, in the hopes of just wasting time.

After a while, it started to get dark, and then an exceptionally thick fog rolled in. Robert had dimmed his lights, but it was no use; he could barely see a foot in front of his car. As he crawled along, he thought about turning around to just head back into the city to stay the night there. But, as he recalled the past half hour, he realized that it would be nearly impossible, because he'd gotten himself lost on purpose. There was no way that he'd be able to find a street that he was familiar with, so he decided that he might as well just press forward.

For a long time, the only sign that he was progressing was the flashes of the road stripes, but then those eventually ended, and then so did the road. "Now I think that I really am lost," Robert whispered to himself as his car bumped along the dirt path. A second later, and he hit the brakes just as his headlights bounced off of a golden gate. "What the…?" Robert left the car running as he got out and went closer to inspect the gate. As he approached, the gates swung open, and Robert tried to look at the grounds, but it was too foggy to see much of anything.

For a lack of anyplace better to go, Robert gave a shrug and went back to his car. He carefully drove up the long, curved driveway— he thought that he spotted a fountain off to his left, but couldn't be sure— before the large and foreboding house appeared out from the fog. As soon as Robert saw the house, he hit the brakes and then turned his car off. He didn't want to accidentally hit some part of the house and end up having to pay possibly millions of dollars to the irate home-owner.

"If this could even be called a home," Robert whispered to himself as he walked closer to the house. It was difficult to tell how tall that it was, because after the second story or so, everything just vanished into the mist, but it was very obvious that the house was exceptionally old.

Robert walked up wide and sweeping steps that lead to a massive wooden door, which was decorated with ornate carvings. He would have loved to examine them closer, if it weren't for the fact that it was late and he was becoming very cold. Robert raised his hand to knock at the door, but they swung open with an ominous creak before he could so much as touch the wood.

"Hello?" Robert called out as he stepped inside. The room beyond, although old, dusty, and more than a little run down, still looked exceptionally beautiful with black marble floors and grey stone walls. Robert could just make out the shape of what must have once been a grand, sweeping staircase several yards into the house, and a dusty and broken crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling.

The room was dark, lit only by a burning, flickering light that came from a room a few feet from the door. As Robert walked in, he passed darkened doorways, and paused for a moment as he passed one, certain that he heard whispered voices from beyond. "Hello? Is anybody here?" he called out. The voices became silent, and Robert walked on, towards the room with the light.

The room in question was a formal sitting room. It seemed more like it was some sort of movie set than anything, but the crackling fire that burned in the fireplace looked exceptionally inviting. As Robert carefully walked into the room, he cast a wary eye around, wondering if the homeowner was seated before the fire in the wing-backed chair. But no, the chair was empty.

"I suppose that it wouldn't hurt to sit for a moment," Robert whispered to himself as he sunk down into the plush chair. Despite how worn and old everything in the room looked, he'd expected for the chair to have the musty smell of dust and old age. But, it smelt like… "Sugar and freshly cut grass?" Robert mused out loud. "No no. That…" He broke off with a loud yawn. "…right." He closed his eyes, his head dropped forward onto his chest, and a moment later, he was fast asleep.

Robert was awoken some time later by a loud boom of a grandfather clock. He jerked awake, and looked around— the fire was mostly embers by now, but it was enough for the man to see by. A light flicked on from a room that lead from the formal sitting room that Robert was in. He pushed himself up, and went to investigate.

Although Robert was fairly certain that there had not been another way in or out of the room, he also admitted to himself that he hadn't been paying too much attention to anything but the fire, and then the chair. The room that was lit up was a formal dining room. Like the rest of the house that Robert had seen, it probably had once been exceptionally grand, but had fallen to disrepair and was in dire need of a good cleaning.

But, the glittering but broken crystal chandelier and golden floor and walls were not what most captured Robert's attention: it was the impressive spread of food upon the table. It seemed to be much more than one man could ever hope to eat by himself, but there was only one chair, and one place setting set out. "Hello?" Robert called out as he approached the table. Again, he received no reply.

He sat down and as he started to eat, he felt a wave of regret and guilt that his family wasn't here to enjoy the most delicious and wonderful food that he'd had in an exceptionally long time.

Before long, he began to get full, and, despite his little nap in front of the fire earlier, Robert felt himself grow exhausted. As if reading his emotions, the lights in the dining room dimmed, and a flickering light appeared at the other end of the hall. Although a bit hesitant to allow himself to be lead further into the house by unseen forces, Robert got up and went to investigate.

The room beyond was only just a grey stone staircase that lead up; the light came from up there, so that's where Robert went. Upstairs, Robert found himself in a slightly drafty hallway that was made of the same grey stone as the staircase had been. There were heavy-looking, wooden doors on either side of the hallway, and it appeared to go on forever. But the first door, directly across from the stairs, was open, and it was where the light was coming from.

Robert walked closer, and peered inside the room— it was a simple bedroom, with a four-poster bed, a night stand, and a wardrobe. There was a single, flickering candle that sat on the night stand. "Strange— the light seemed much brighter when I was in the dining room," Robert mused to himself as he walked into the room. There was a small, stained glass window opposite the door, and Robert crossed the room in order to look outside. But, there wasn't much to see beyond the oppressive fog, so he turned back and examined the bed.

"Well, no harm has come to me thus far, and it's probably not very safe for me to drive in the fog while I'm this exhausted. I'll just get some rest and leave first thing in the morning." Robert first pulled off his shoes, which he put by the side of the bed, and then he pulled off his belt, and pulled the things out from his pockets, which he placed on the night stand. Then, he blew out the candle, lay back on the bed, and was soon fast asleep.

* * *

The next morning, bright sunlight streamed in through the stained glass window and woke Robert up. As he grabbed his things, he took a closer look at the room. The natural, bright light made the things in the room seem in much better condition than they had been in the night before. Of course, they weren't overly ornate, like he'd expected them to be, but they also weren't bad to look at, either. Before Robert left the room, he looked at the stained glass window. Maybe he'd been too focused on trying to see outside the night before, but he was certain that the decorative image in the window hadn't been a white owl perched in a tree.

Outside the room, the hallway that had seemed nearly endless the night before really didn't look that long. It was funny what a lack of light and an over-exhausted mind could do to people. Robert went downstairs, and found that the dining room was just as it had been last night, with the exception that the roasted turkey and potatoes had been replaced with pancakes and hardboiled eggs. There was still only one chair and one place set at the table.

After a hearty breakfast, Robert made his way through the sitting room, through the front hall, and then he went outside. As he walked down the steps that would take him to his car that was a few feet from the house, he spotted several ornately cut rose bushes that offered a rainbow of flower colors. Robert remembered what Sarah had asked for and walked past his car to the bushes. He couldn't get Irene a piece of jewelry or Toby a TV, but at least he might be able to return his daughter the one thing that she'd asked for.

The first bush at the end of the drive was filled with the most beautiful rose buds that Robert had ever seen. Not a single dead leaf or browning bud was to be found on the bush. Robert scanned the flowers, and then gently plucked the largest flower that the bush had to offer.

"And what exactly do you think that you're doing?" a soft but oddly terrifying voice asked from behind Robert as soon as he'd picked the flower. The man that stood before Robert was the strangest person that he had ever seen before. The man's blond hair was exceptionally wild, like he'd tried to tame it with static electricity. He wore a glittery, black coat over exceptionally tight, black pants, and had on black leather boots, and finished the look off with some black leather gloves. But it was his face that was the most strange— oddly beautiful, yet at the same time, oddly horrifying. His eyes were two different colors, and were rimmed with blue and white make up, and his mouth was set into an exceptionally angry scowl.

"I… uh…" Robert stammered.

"I have allowed you to stay in my home, I let you eat my food and sleep in one of my beds. And how do you repay me?" the strange man asks. His voice is dangerously low.

"It's for my daughter," Robert offered, and then winced at his poor excuse. "While my wife and son asked for silly things… things that I cannot bring to them, my Sarah only asked for one thing: a rose."

"Your… daughter?" the man questioned. The cruel mask on his face slipped for a second and was replaced with a look that Robert could not name.

"Yes," Robert agreed. "Sarah." At the mention of his daughter's name, the strange look on the man's face was replaced with a smile, but it was anything but kind, and sent a shiver of fear up Robert's spine.

"It would be most unkind of me to let a man not deliver such a beautiful flower to his daughter," the man said. "But I'm afraid that I can't just let you go after harming my rose bush. If you do not return back here in 24 hours, I will come to fetch you. And the punishment of your crime will be for you to spend the rest of your life in an oubliette." The man stalked closer to Robert until Robert was pressed up against the rose bush, and the strange man was right in his face. "Do I make myself clear?"

Robert could only nod in fear. A second later, the man vanished. Robert scrambled to his car, and quickly peeled away from the foreboding house. The gate swung open as Robert approached, which was just as well, because he was more than willing to crash through the overly ornate, golden gate in his haste to leave the strange place behind.

There was a stretch of unpaved road, but the second that the ornate wall and gate had vanished from the rear-view mirrors, the road became paved. Robert recognized the main road that the neighborhood he lived on, and as he turned the corner, he looked behind him and could not see a single sign of the strange place that he had come from.

It was bizarre, because Robert had explored the area of his neighborhood plenty of times, and he'd never seen the strange house, or even the unpaved road, before.

Within minutes, Robert pulled into the driveway of his home, and Irene, Toby, and Sarah ran out to greet him. "Where were you?" Irene asked as soon as Robert had opened the car door. "We were all so worried."

Robert picked the rose that had caused him so much trouble and silently walked inside. Once there, he presented the flower to Sarah. "Have I got a story to tell you." They sat around the dining room table and listened as Robert described what had happened with his former boss, Mr. Loughlin, his winding journey home, his trip through the fog, and his over-night stay at the massive, old house.

But after Robert described the rose bushes that lined the driveway, he paused in his narration. "What happened next, dad?" Toby urged.

"There was… this man. He was the most peculiar man that I've ever seen before," Robert started. "He's a little hard to describe, and I'm not even quite certain if you'd believe me anyway. I've sat across from and next to men who have murdered men, women, and children in cold blood, but I've never felt the amount of fear with serial killers that I have with this man." Robert proceeded to tell his family what the man had said, and what he had promised should Robert not return.

"Oh honey, don't be absurd," Irene said with a hesitant laugh. "You almost had us fooled until that last part."

"I'm telling you that this was all real! I went into the house, I ate the food, and I slept in the bed! Look at this flower! This is real!" Robert insisted. He looked to Sarah, who was running her fingers lightly along the silky petals of the rose. "Sarah! You believe me, don't you?" Sarah was always reading some fairy tale novel or another; she was the one who told Toby fantastic tales of fairies and princesses who were rescued by dashing princes and whatnot.

"I don't doubt for a second that you stumbled into a fairy realm, dad," Sarah said carefully. Her eyes never left the flower in front of her. Irene snorted derisively.

"Come on, Sarah. You're too old to believe in that stuff anymore," she told her step-daughter.

Sarah ignored Irene and looked to her father. "Dad, if you don't go back there, then I'm afraid of what this guy might do to you. Being dropped into an oubliette might be the least of your problems."

"You're right. I can't have this guy show up on our doorstep and start threatening my family. I have to go back there," Robert said.

"Robert!" Irene exclaimed. "You can't be serious! I don't care to delve into the reasons why you had some… hallucination, but I won't have you just run off and abandon your family like that!"

"And if some psychotic man shows up at our house and starts threatening me? What if he starts threatening you three?"

Irene opened her mouth to respond, but Sarah started to talk first. "No, dad. Irene's right; you can't just up and leave like that. What about Toby? You can't expect for him to grow up without his father." She gave her father a stern glare from across the table.

"We'll just call the pol-" Irene started, but Sarah interrupted her.

"Which is why I'll go and take your place."

"Sarah, you can't!" Robert protested loudly.

"I won't allow you to go off like that either, young lady!" Irene exclaimed.

"You're the glue that's held this family together this past year," Robert went on.

"Dad, even though your meeting with Mr. Loughlin didn't go exactly as you'd hoped, there is still a slight chance that he will rehire you. And you've got to be here for Irene and Toby. I… I'll be okay. I've… I've had some first-had experience with Fae before."

"What?" Irene whispered. "Sarah? What are you talking about?"

"The Goblin King," Toby whispered. All eyes were on the young boy. "I remember. I thought that it was just a dream that I'd had, brought on by the stories that you tell me, Sarah. But… was all real, wasn't it?" He looked to his older sister with wide, blue eyes that, despite the fact that he was only 5 years old, his eyes looked like they had seen too much.

"Yes," Sarah said simply, and offered no further information. Toby nodded, as if it answered a lot of things. Irene looked between her son and step-daughter with a look that was half aghast, half confused. Robert simply just looked depressed. Finally, "Look, I'm not going to tell you what happened, but only tell you that I was fifteen and I was a bratty child who was more than angry with you and dad. And I took that anger out on Toby, which wasn't fair to him. But, everything worked out in the end, so it doesn't matter. And I'm going to go to this man and take your place, dad. There will be no further discussion over this." She abruptly stood and left the room.

* * *

The family was quiet for the rest of the day. Irene was both irritated and confused by what Sarah had said, although she quickly found out that Toby didn't have much to say about what had happened to him because he didn't remember it. Which was to be expected, considering the fact that he'd been one when Sarah had been fifteen.

After a tense, silent, and quick dinner, Sarah came out to the living room with a suitcase. "Sarah, no," Irene protested, but she didn't have the energy to try and fight this. It was apparent that Sarah had made up her mind, and when she did that, nothing in the world could change her mind.

"Listen, Irene," Robert whispered gently to his wife. "I don't think that we're going to be able to find this place again. And even if we do manage to, I don't think that he would seriously hurt Sarah. Especially since, not only would she be taking my place, but she's also going to him of her own free will." Irene gave him a dry look, pressed her lips together, but refrained from saying anything.

She gave Sarah a long hug, and then gave one to Robert, too. Sarah bent over and tightly wrapped her arms around Toby. "Be safe, and take care of dad and your mom, okay?" she whispered in his ear.

"Alright. I love you," the young boy whispered.

"I love you, too." Sarah stood, grabbed her bag, and walked out to her father's car; Robert followed after her.

"Erm…" Robert said, and then gave an awkward cough. "I don't know if you overheard what I said to Irene, but I'm not sure if we're going to be able to find this place. It was so close to here when I left this morning, but I'd never even seen it before."

"Trust me when I say this dad: when you're wanted by the Fae, they have a way of finding you."

As soon as they turned the corner away from their block, they were set upon by a thick fog, not unlike the one that Robert had driven through the night before. Sarah gave her father a pointed look as if to say "See? Told you so."

After a few minutes of crawling along the streets in the dense fog, the car went off road, and they soon came to the same golden gate from before. "I think that we should walk the rest of the way," Robert said as he parked the car and turned the engine off. Sarah silently agreed, and opened the back door of the car to retrieve her suitcase before she followed her dad up to the gate.

As they approached, the gate swung open, and they proceeded to walk up the long path that lead up to the house. "Is it my imagination, or is the fog getting thinner?" Robert asked after they'd been walking in silence for several minutes.

"I think it is," Sarah agreed. "Look over there; some lights." Robert looked to where she was pointing and had to agree that there were several balls of light from the direction that they were headed. Robert had been too focused on trying not to hit anything in the fog that he hadn't paid much attention to the direction of the house.

By the time that they reached the front steps, the fog was almost completely gone, and Robert looked back over his shoulder; he could clearly see the car on the other side of the now-closed gate, maybe a mile or so back.

Sarah bravely strode up to the door and, like the gate, it opened as she approached it. "Hello?" she called out in a clear voice as she stepped inside. Robert winced a little as her overly-loud voice echoed throughout the empty room.

"Mr. Williams," said a soft voice from the shadows. The voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. "I was not expecting for you to bring Sarah."

"I don't know why you're so angry about a single flower, but there's no way that I'm going to let you kidnap my father," Sarah said sternly. She stopped in the middle of the front hall and looked around as she tried to locate where the man might be.

"Ah, so you've decided to take daddy dearest's place here, have you?"

"Yes, I have," Sarah said as she spun around on the spot.

"Very well then." He sounded overly bored. "I'll give you two minutes to say your goodbyes." Robert hurried to Sarah's side.

"Are you sure that this is what you want?"

"I'll be fine, dad," Sarah told him in a whispered voice, although she wasn't even certain if she even believed herself. "You have to go and get your job back. Take care of Irene and Toby. Maybe some day, I'll be able to see you again." Robert hugged his daughter tightly, almost as if he wasn't going to let her go.

A cold blast of air blew through the hall, and Sarah pulled away from her father. "I think that that's your cue to leave."

"Alright. Be careful, Sarah. I love you."

"I love you too, dad."

Robert turned and started to walk over to the front door, but he kept turning around to look back at Sarah, who hadn't moved from where she stood in the middle of the hall. As soon as Robert walked out through the doors, they closed behind him with a massive thud, and Sarah was surrounded in darkness.

A warm and inviting light flared to life at the top of the grand staircase. Sarah gripped the handle on her suitcase tighter and slowly started to make her way up to where the light was. The stairs groaned and protested as she went, but they seemed sturdy enough. Once at the top, the light appeared on the right, bobbing and weaving as if it was being held by a drunkard.

"Hey, wait," Sarah called as she hurried to catch up to the light that was quickly vanishing down a hall. She ran past the bannisters that overlooked the front hall, and went into a darkened hallway.

The light briefly vanished before the hallway was lit with a very bright light as it spilled out from a room. Sarah went into the room and found that it wasn't just a bedroom, but a complete suite. There was a small sitting room, furnished with a red fainting sofa, a large and overly ornate writing desk. The sitting room was slightly separated from the bedroom by a half-wall, which was furnished with a very large and plush looking four-poster bed that had red velvet drapes and red velvet blankets.

As she stepped further into the bedroom area, she saw a wardrobe that matched the writing desk, and a beautiful screen panel, that hid a claw-footed bathtub in the corner.

"My dearest Sarah," said a voice from behind her that made her jump. She whirled around, and dropped her suitcase by her feet.

"You!" she hissed. "I can't believe that you'd stoop so low as to threaten my father in order to get at me again!"

Jareth simply chuckled. "I don't know what you're talking about, precious."

Sarah crossed her arms over her chest with annoyance. "You know perfectly well what I'm talking about."

"Do you like the room that I've prepared for you?"

"I'm not staying here," Sarah said coldly.

"Oh, I don't think that you'll have any choice in the matter, precious," Jareth said. He then vanished, and the door slammed shut.

"Dammit, Jareth!" Sarah swore. She jumped over to her bag and ran to the door; she tried to open it but it was locked. "Let! Me! Out!" She punctuated each word by pounding her fist onto the door.

After several minutes of this, it was obvious that he was not going to let her out of the room. She slid to the floor and started to cry with her face pressed against the rough surface of the wooden door.

* * *

Jareth watched Sarah carefully from the second that he left her quarters via a crystal. After a while, her heavy sobbing stopped, and and then he transported himself into her room. He stood over the sleeping girl for a while and just observed her. But then he bent over and gently picked the girl up and walked over to her bed, where the blankets turned down before Jareth was halfway there.

As he settled her onto the bed, she half-turned and mumbled something incoherent. "Sleep," Jareth whispered as he brushed a gloved hand over her forehead gently. Sarah's breathing evened out again as she fell back into a deeper sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Once again, this has not been proof read, so I'd appreciate it if anybody could tell me about any massive errors.

* * *

Sarah awoke with a start and looked around her with confusion. As the events of the previous day came back to her, she threw back the blankets of the bed and once again stormed over to the door. It was still locked, but that didn't stop Sarah from banging on it for a few minutes and screaming semi-coherent threats at the Goblin King.

When that proved to not only be ineffective but also hurt her hands, which were quite bruised from beating on the door the night before, she took to storming around her quarters and muttering under her breath the things that she would do to the King.

After several minutes of this, Sarah plopped down on the fainting sofa with an annoyed huff. "Now that you've tired yourself out, would you be so kind as to join me for breakfast?" Jareth asked as he appeared before her in an instant.

Sarah crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at the Goblin King. "I'm not hungry," she hissed. Jareth simply shrugged before he vanished again. Sarah let out a scream of frustration and beat her heels into the floor.

* * *

Jareth had watched Sarah all day. It wasn't all that exciting, because she mostly just said a lot of very rude and vaguely threating things towards his person as she stormed around her quarters, but it also thrilled him, because he finally had Sarah trapped.

He hadn't bothered to even ask her to join him for lunch, because he felt as if going hungry might soften her up. Besides, around lunch time, she'd been muttering about doing unspeakable horrors with a knife to his most intimate bits, and he had no desire to even try to approach her while she was on that particular subject.

But when it started to grow dark, Sarah flopped face-down on the bed. Now, Jareth watched her from a crystal as he walked down the hall that would take him to her rooms; she hadn't moved in nearly half an hour now. He knocked firmly on her door.

"Go away, Jareth." Her voice was muffled by a pillow.

"Would you be so kind as to join me for dinner?"

"I'm not hungry." Her voice lacked the venom that she'd had when he'd invited her to breakfast.

"I'll have you know that I will not tolerate you harassing my subjects for food in the middle of the night," Jareth told her coldly. "If you do not come to dinner with me, then you will not eat until morning." Silence. Jareth looked at the crystal in his hand— Sarah still had not moved. "Sarah? Did you hear me? I said-"

"Go away."

Jareth raised an eyebrow, but didn't offer anything else to the woman. Instead, he turned on his heel and vanished.

* * *

After Jareth had invited Sarah to dinner, she'd fallen into a fitful sleep. She awoke with a startled gasp as a clock somewhere chimed the midnight hour. Her quarters were dark, but as she sat up, a single candle sprung to life. She absently rubbed at the dried tears on her cheeks as she got out of bed. She went automatically to the door, and was more than a little surprised to find that it was unlocked.

"Huh, maybe the spell wears off at midnight," she whispered as she poked her head out the door. The hallway was beyond dark, and she could barely see the door of the room across the hall from hers. Sarah scuttled back into her room, grabbed the candle off from the night stand, and then left her room all together.

The hallway seemed to stretch on forever in either direction. "Let's see now… I think that I came from this way…" Sarah said, and turned to her right. The only sounds she heard were her own footsteps, the gentle swish of her pants as she walked, and her slightly uneven breathing. After walking for about ten minutes, Sarah still hadn't come to anything other than more door-lined hallway. "No, this isn't right," she whispered as she looked behind her. Nothing but a small glimpse of the doors that she'd already passed before everything was swallowed up by the nearly impenetrable darkness.

Annoyed and frustrated, Sarah remembered the very first test once she had actually gotten inside of the labyrinth. She walked over to the nearest door, twisted the handle, and was a little surprised when it opened. There wasn't a room beyond, but rather, only just stairs that lead down. She couldn't see how far down that they went, but it seemed better than just wandering the seemingly endless hallway, so Sarah started down.

Several minutes later, there was enough light that spilled into the stairwell from where ever it lead to that Sarah no longer needed the aid of the candle. She ran down the last several steps and came out into a large, clean, well-stocked, and well-lit kitchen.

"Well, look who finally decided to show up," said a gruff voice from around elbow-height. Sarah looked down and saw a stocky, blue-skinned goblin that wore a grubby and worn apron.

"I'm sorry; who are you?" Sarah asked him.

"Gorbal, His Majesty's personal chef," the goblin introduced himself with a sweeping bow. "He said that you'd be down here, lookin' for somethin' to eat."

"He told me that I shouldn't bother his staff, and that if I didn't eat dinner with him, then I wouldn't be able to eat until morning."

"Do you honestly believe that His Majesty would honestly just let you starve?" Gorbal asked with a scowl.

"Well… I don't know what to believe. After all, he locked me in my room all day," Sarah said with a matching scowl. Gorbal muttered something incoherent under his breath before he looked back up to Sarah.

"Well, milady, His Majesty specifically told me to wait in the kitchen until you showed up and asked for your dinner. And I'm glad that you did, because I'm about dead on my feet from exhaustion." Gorbal waved his hand towards one of the counters, and an entire roasted chicken appeared, as well as steamed carrots and baked apples.

Sarah's stomach let out a loud growl, and she sat down on the bar stool and dug into the meal with gusto. "This is completely delicious," she said after a few bites. "Did you make this?"

"Yes, of course. His Majesty will not let anybody else but me prepare his meals."

Sarah ate in silence for several minutes until she started to get full. Then, she cut open a baked apple, and speared it with her fork. "Are you quite certain that Jareth told you to do this?"

"Am I sure that His Majesty specifically told me to stay awake until you showed up, and then feed you? Why in the world would I stay up past midnight otherwise?" Gorbal muttered something else under his breath.

Sarah chewed thoughtfully for a few seconds before she put her fork down and looked around the kitchen. "Well?" Gorbal asked. "Are you finished?"

"Um, I suppose so, yes," Sarah said. With surprising strength for a creature half her size, Gorbal pushed the stool that Sarah sat upon until she was forced onto her feet.

"Along with my first instructions to wait up until you came in search of your supper, I was also instructed not to let you linger. I'm tired, so be gone with you, milady." Gorbal pushed Sarah until she was in the doorway of the stairs she'd taken to reach the kitchens.

"Alright, alright! I'm going!" Sarah said. She grabbed the candle that she'd left on one of the other counters, and then started up the stairs.

"Oh, and milady?" Gorbal called up after her.

"Yeah?"

"His Majesty was not happy with you declining his offers to join him for meals today. I don't think that you will find him as generous tomorrow as you did today."

"Alright. Noted," Sarah said before she turned back around and continued to climb up the stairs. Once she was back in the hallway, a door opened and light spilled out, much like it had the night before. Sarah walked towards the room and found that it was her room. "Okay, that's odd. I swear that it took at least ten minutes to go from my room until I just happened upon the door that lead down to the kitchens. But now, it took less than a minute to get back."

The first thing that Sarah noticed upon her return to her room was that the single photo of her family that she'd brought with her was propped up on the writing desk. She closed the door behind her and then walked over to the bedroom area, where she saw that her suitcase, which she'd pushed up against the foot of the bed, was gone. Sarah threw the doors to the wardrobe open, and saw that somebody had folded and put all of her clothes on the floor of the wardrobe. But the thing that most caught her attention were the beautiful dresses that hung above her regular clothes.

"I don't know if you're spying on me or not right now, Jareth, but there's no chance in hell that I'm going to put on one of those dresses," Sarah said just loud enough for any spying Goblin King to hear. Instead, she searched through her own clothes until she found her favorite over-sized sleeping shirt. She undressed, pulled the shirt on, and then climbed into bed.

As soon as her head hit the pillow, the lights in the room went out.

* * *

Jareth stood over Sarah's sleeping form. She hadn't put on pants to sleep in, and only just wore an over-sized t-shirt and a pair of panties. She'd kicked the blankets to the edge of the bed sometime during the night, and the sheet was tangled around her bare legs. Jareth allowed himself a moment to gaze at her legs— they were slightly tanned and looked strong. Unfortunately, the sheet covered her posterior, and her shirt covered everything that it was supposed to.

He leaned down closer to Sarah's ear and said, "My my, what a lovely sight you present so early in the morning." Sarah jerked awake, took one look at Jareth standing over her with a demented smirk on his face, and rolled up into the sheet.

"What the hell you creep?!" she exclaimed as she tried to untangle herself and cover herself up at the same time. "Don't just perv on women while they sleep!"

"Yes, but this is my kingdom, my castle, and my room. I can do whatever I want," Jareth said with a sly smile. "I request your presence down at breakfast in half an hour. Might I suggest that you make good use of the bath?" And then he was gone. Sarah let out a scream of frustration, but quickly got up and pulled on a clean t-shirt and jeans; she didn't want to tempt fate in case Jareth came back— with her luck, he'd come back again when she was in the bath.

Out in the hall, in the light of day, it didn't seem nearly quite as long as it had last night. But Sarah still swore that it took her ten minutes to get to the kitchen. However, what had been a closed door across the hall from her room the night before was now an open doorway with a set of stairs that lead down.

"Well, maybe it's not so much that it took me ten minutes to walk down the hall as it took me ten minutes to figure out that I was wasting my time in walking down the hall," Sarah muttered to herself as she started down the stairs. The stairs brought Sarah to a breakfast room, which was much like the formal dining room, but on a smaller and less grand scale. Large picture windows looked out over a beautiful garden, and let in a lot of sunlight.

"Good morning, Sarah. So kind of you to join me," Jareth said. He sat at one end of the table, and regarded Sarah over some toast. Sarah walked over and sat in the only other chair at the table, which was across from the Goblin King.

"Yeah, well, I got the feeling that your invitation wasn't optional," Sarah said.

"As I told you yesterday, I won't have you harassing my staff," Jareth said.

"Your chef told me that you'd instructed him to wait up for me," Sarah said as she helped herself to a slice of toast.

"Me giving my staff instructions and you harassing them are two completely different matters, precious."

Sarah stopped spreading jam over her toast and just glared at Jareth. He seemed completely oblivious to the dark glare that the woman sent his way, and simply dished himself up a generous portion of scrambled eggs. "Okay, what's your deal?"

"My deal? Sarah, dear, I have no idea what you're talking about," Jareth said with an absent air.

"You're joking, right? My father didn't just accidentally wander into your castle."

"If some foolish, lost human just wanders into my castle, it's not my problem," Jareth said. He gave Sarah an even look, which she matched with one of her own.

"So, let me see if I understand this correctly: You're perfectly alright with a complete stranger just wandering into your home, eating your food, sleeping under your roof… but so help them if they pick a flower!"

"I don't like people to touch my flowers. My gardeners work so hard to grow them, after all."

"Then if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to go and pick all of the flowers from your garden," Sarah said. She half-stood to leave the room and started to put her napkin on the table.

"Sit down," Jareth said, his voice dangerously low. Sarah's knees buckled against her will, and she was grateful that she hadn't moved from the chair, or else she would have found herself on the ground. Jareth vanished and reappeared at Sarah's side. He then presented her with a purple hyacinth. "If you want flowers, all you have to do is ask. Don't go around and destroy my gardens for the sake of petty vengeance, my dear." Sarah felt her face heat up, and she told herself that it was out of anger rather than embarrassment; that the reason why her heart was pounding was because she'd been afraid that the Goblin King was about to do something to her.

And just as quickly as Jareth had appeared at her side, he was sitting in his chair again. He grabbed another slice of toast and started to spread marmalade on it. Sarah reached for the eggs, and they ate in awkward silence for several more minutes.

"Well, my dearest Sarah, as stimulating as our conversation has been, I'm afraid that I have a kingdom to run," Jareth said after several minutes. He put his napkin next to his plate. "Do try to keep yourself out of trouble today." And with that, he was gone.

With an annoyed sigh, Sarah put her napkin down on her plate and picked up the flower. She twirled it between her thumb and index finger absently, before she stood and walked back upstairs. "I half expected him to tell me that some wing or tower or something is forbidden. But, everything in this place seems to magically appear and disappear, so I'm sure that if there's some place that he doesn't want me to go to, it just wouldn't appear."

She walked across the hall to the door there— when she'd gone down to breakfast, it had been her own room. But when Sarah opened the door, she was shocked that it wasn't her room, but rather, a room that was more like what her father had described the room that he'd stayed in.

Sarah closed the door, and then moved to the room next to it. The room was more of the same. Sarah looked into three more bedrooms before she said, "Okay, enough of that. Time to think of something better to do." There was a slight popping sound from behind Sarah, and she turned around and saw that what had once been at least two doors was now a wide archway that opened up into a massive library.

Slightly awe-struck by the massive amount of books, Sarah wandered into the room. Even though the area that Sarah stood in was at least 12 feet tall, there was a balcony that ran around two of the walls that housed even more books. There were tall windows spaced evenly between the shelves on the first floor that allowed bright sunlight to stream in, and plush chairs and sofas were scattered over the first floor by the windows.

"Wow," Sarah breathed as she looked around. There were way more books in the library than she could ever hope to read in her entire lifetime. She wandered over to the nearest shelf, and started to read the titles almost absently. These particular ones seemed to be historical novels, and she briefly wondered if there was some sort of written history about the Labyrinth, the goblins, or about Jareth's rule as king.

Much in the same way that the castle seemed to respond to where Sarah wanted to go, the books that Sarah had been looking at were abruptly replaced with a completely different array of novels. Sarah's eye first landed on "The Great Goblin Wars", before she spotted "The Origins of the Labyrinth". Sarah eased the massive tome out from its spot on the shelf, and then carried it over to a chair by the nearest window.

Before she sat down, she took a moment to stare out at the scenery outside. Much like the windows in the breakfast room, they overlooked the gardens, but thanks to the higher vantage point, Sarah could also see a little bit of the Labyrinth. It was funny, but it somehow seemed less sinister now than it had when she'd run it five years ago. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she didn't have to run it, or maybe it was just the time of day or the vantage point from the library.

With an absent shrug, Sarah sat down; she balanced the book on her legs and let it fall open naturally. Then, she flipped to the table of contents to see what she was in for.

* * *

Jareth stood from his desk and rolled his head back in order to remove some of the worst kinks. Being the king wasn't always easy or even remotely fun, and having to respond rather promptly to masses of reports was very high on his list of some of the worst things about running a kingdom.

Unlike the day before when he'd pretty much kept a close eye on what Sarah had been doing the entire day, he'd trusted his goblins to keep him up to speed on what she was up to. However, he hadn't heard from any of his subjects concerning Sarah since about an hour after he'd left her at breakfast, and now he was more than a little worried about what she was doing.

Jareth quickly conjured up a crystal, and used it to look upon Sarah. He found her curled up on a chair in the library, reading a very thick book. Judging by the page that she appeared to be on, it looked like she'd been in there since about breakfast. With a sly smile, Jareth transported himself to the library. "Good evening, Miss Williams," Jareth said. Sarah looked up from what she was reading, clearly a little startled by his appearance.

"Oh," she said. "It is getting late; I hadn't noticed." She picked up the hyacinth, which had been sitting on a side table all day, and used it to mark her place before she slammed the large book she'd been reading closed.

"'Origins of the Labyrinth'," Jareth read out loud. "Doing a bit of light reading, my dear?"

"Yep," Sarah said as she put the book aside and stood up. "Know thy enemy and all that."

"My dear, I am not your enemy."

"You're keeping me here against my will."

"I seem to recall that you came here of your own free will in order to take the place of your father," Jareth told her coolly. "If you're unhappy here, I'm more than willing to exchange you for your father." Sarah just stood and glared at the Goblin King. "You are free to leave whenever you wish, but keep in mind that if you leave, then your father will have to come in your place."

"I don't have to stand here and listen to you goad me," Sarah said as she stepped around Jareth to leave. Jareth grabbed Sarah's wrist and in an instant, the library melted away and was replaced by the formal dining room. Sarah looked down at herself and yelped in surprise. She had been wearing jeans and a t-shirt earlier, but now she was dressed in a green and cream long-sleeved dress that swept to the floor. "What the hell? What did you do with my clothes?" Sarah exclaimed as she jerked her arm out from Jareth's grasp.

"I assure you that they've been sent safely to the laundry," Jareth said. He had also undergone a wardrobe change, although it wasn't nearly as drastic as Sarah's was. He simply exchanged his jacket and boots for something a little more formal. "After all, we are now going to sit down to dinner, and it is most unbecoming for a guest of mine to come down wearing something so informal." He pulled out a chair and gestured for Sarah to sit. She sat, but not without a massive scowl on her face. Jareth sat across the table from her, and started to help himself to the food.

Sarah started to pile food onto her plate, and they ate in silence for a few minutes. "Is it true?"

"I'm sorry; is what true?"

"The stuff that they talked about in that book. Is it true?"

"While I will admit that sometimes Fae writers have a tendency to… over-elaborate on the most simple of things, it is completely true."

More silence. The room was filled with the soft sounds of cutlery on china plates.

"I can't believe that all of this came about because some kid went missing!" Sarah finally exclaimed.

"I generally love the companionship of humans, but I will admit that they can be a bit dense and close-minded at times," Jareth said evenly.

"Did you ever find out what really happened to the child? The book didn't say."

"As I'm sure you figured out for yourself, I did not take the child. And since the villagers had no desire to so much as listen to my side of the story, let alone give me the time I needed to try and figure out what happened to him, I have no clue."

"Oh, come on. You must have at least some theories as to what happened. Especially after all this time."

"It is… not something that I enjoy dwelling on," Jareth said carefully after considering what Sarah had said for a moment. "I moved my entire kingdom into another realm because of one lost child."

"I honestly don't think that the people would have snapped like that after one missing child," Sarah said after a beat. "You were probably starting to get on their nerves, and then the child went missing and they just snapped." Jareth regarded Sarah coolly from across the table. "If you don't want me to talk about it, then maybe you should have a long chat with your library about the books that it recommends."

"If I didn't want for my guests to read the book, I wouldn't have put it into my library in the first place," Jareth said after a moment. Silence filled the hall.

"Why exactly do you take the babies that have been wished away?" Sarah asked after a moment.

"Sport, mostly. I have my good reputation to uphold after all."

"It's just a game for you?" Sarah exclaimed, her voice about half an octave higher than it normally is.

"I can assure you that your brother was in no real danger," Jareth quickly told her. "Even if you hadn't completed my Labyrinth, I would have returned him, at any rate. What am I going to do with a human child, after all?"

"What is wrong with you?" Sarah hissed. "Do you just enjoy toying with people in order to maintain your reputation? Oh, here's a bratty fifteen year old girl who wished away her baby brother! Let's mess with her!"

"Sarah, please. It's-" Jareth started, but Sarah stood abruptly, threw her napkin down onto the table, and ran from the table. A doorway appeared, and Sarah vanished up the stairs. Jareth heaved a massive sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration.

Sarah had run up the stairs, and the door directly across the hall from the top of the stairs flew open to Sarah's quarters. She slammed the door shut in anger, a little pleased with how the slam seemed to echo in the empty hall.

That was when she noticed the vase of purple hyacinths that sat on the writing desk. "Yeah," she said with a snort as she walked into the bedroom area. "Fat chance buttering me up with flowers." There was another vase of purple hyacinths on the nightstand, and even the stained glass window had changed from a sunrise over rolling, green hills to the purple flowers. "What is with all of these flowers?" Sarah whispered to herself as she stepped closer to the window.

A small book appeared on the window sill, and Sarah stepped closer to look at it. "'The Secret Language of Flowers'," she read out loud. Sarah vaguely recalled her mother talking about this before— it was some Victorian thing that every plant had some hidden meaning. She thumbed through the book until she found hyacinths, and then looked down the list of different colors until she found purple.

"I am sorry; please forgive me," the entry read.

"Yeah, well, it's all very well and good to give me flowers that tell me that you're sorry, but that somehow doesn't excuse the fact that you toyed with me for your own amusement, and continue to do so!" Sarah yelled. Nothing happened. Frustrated, Sarah started to try and figure out how to undress herself. The dress itself was more than easy enough, but when Sarah tried to undo the strings on the corset— which wasn't even all that tight— she quickly found that she had trouble reaching the strings enough in order to loosen them further.

A knock sounded at the door, and Sarah gave a low growl of frustration as she went to answer it. "I swear to god, Jareth, if you…" Sarah trailed off when she realized that it was not the Goblin King, but rather, a young goblin girl who wore a simple dress.

"Sorry to disturb you, milady, but His Majesty sent me to help you undo your corset," the girl explained.

"I'm sorry; thank you," Sarah said. The girl walked into the room and Sarah shut the door behind her. "What's your name?"

"Muzga, milady. Please, turn around." Sarah did as she was asked, and the young goblin's nimble fingers made quick work of the restrains on the corset. Sarah held it up with her arms as she pulled the shirt that she'd slept in the night before over her head, before she pulled the corset off.

"Muzga, can I ask you a question?"

"Yes, of course, milady."

"Why do you call me 'milady'?"

"His Majesty told all of his goblins to call you 'milady' or Miss Williams."

"Uh… why?" Sarah asked carefully.

"He says that you are an honored guest here," Muzga explained. "Like when His Majesty's mother comes to visit, or His Majesty hosts a ball. We must call everybody milady or milord."

"But I'm not a lady," Sarah protested as she pulled out a pair of shorts from the wardrobe and pulled them on. "I'm not even from this realm."

"I know that, and so does everybody else. But His Majesty asked for us to refer to you as such, and we can't disobey a direct order from His Majesty like that."

"Yes, but did he want for me to be called that because I'm his guest?"

"I don't know," Muzga said with an absent shrug. "His Majesty asks a lot of funny requests of us. Asking to call you by a title doesn't even begin to make my top 100 list of strange things that he's done."

Sarah let out a big sigh as she considered the goblin before her. "Alright, thank you for your help, Muzga," she finally said. The goblin gave a low bow before she turned and left the room.

Sarah walked around the folding screen and eyed the bath. As if sensing Sarah's desire for a hot bath, the tub started to fill with water. Sarah eyed the vase of flowers suspiciously before she eyed the window. But after the water shut off, she shrugged and pulled her clothes off before she sunk into the bath. The water was just the right temperature, and Sarah let out a content sigh.

A cloth and some soap appeared on the edge of the tub, and Sarah grabbed them and began to wash herself— the soap smelt of lavender. After she'd deemed herself clean, the water started to drain out of the tub in the same, mysterious way that it had arrived. A towel appeared, hung over the top of the folding screen. Sarah got out, dried herself, redressed, and then flopped down on the bed.

* * *

Irene was just finishing up washing the dishes from their dinner when somebody rang the doorbell. Robert had taken Toby out to the nearby park to toss a ball around before it got too dark. Ever since Robert had taken Sarah to whatever fate awaited her, the boy had been exceptionally depressed. He'd refused to get out of bed, and getting the boy to even get dressed, let alone to go to school was simply out of the question. Which meant that Irene had to go and answer the door herself.

She paused for a moment to dry her hands on the towel that hung over the bar on the oven, before she made her way through the cramped living room to the front door. "Greg, hi." Irene offered the young man who lived in the house across the street from them a strained if not cheerful smile.

"Hi, Mrs. Williams. Is Sarah here?" Greg asked. He flashed the older woman a charming smile. Irene liked the young man— when they'd first moved into their current house, she'd hoped that Sarah would start a relationship with Greg. But much like Sarah's dating through her high school years and into college, the girl seemed more interested in her fairy tales than dating and romance.

Irene's smile faltered slightly at his question. "No, I'm sorry." Irene's fingers dug into the wood of the door— she and Robert hadn't really discussed what they should say about Sarah's disappearance. The people in this neighborhood were friendly with the girl, and they were bound to start asking sooner or later why she wasn't around anymore.

"I see. Then do you know when she might be back?"

What was left of Irene's smile completely faded from her face. "No," she said as politely as she could. "I'm not her mother— Sarah's an adult and she can come and go as she pleases." She started to search for an excuse to ask Greg to (politely!) leave, but then she spotted the familiar figures of her husband and son at the end of the block. "Robert and Toby are back now. If you'll excuse me, Greg…" She turned around and shut the door in his face.

A few minutes later, Robert and Toby came inside. Irene was distracted for the next hour or so as she gave her son a bath, read him a bedtime story, and then tucked him into bed. "Okay, we need to talk," Irene said in a hushed voice as she approached her husband in the kitchen. "About Sarah."

"I told you everything about what happened last night-"

"No, not that," Irene said as she cut Robert off. "Before you came home from the park, Greg came over and asked for Sarah."

"What did you tell him?"

"That she wasn't here, that I wasn't her mother, and that she was an adult and thus, free to come and go as she pleases. But, we can't just keep saying stuff like that— people are bound to realize that she's not here anymore."

"Oh, right." Robert was silent for a moment, and stared blankly out the window. "I don't suppose that people will buy the fact that she turned herself over to a Fairy Prince in order to save me from some horrible fate?"

"Robert, be serious!" Irene hissed at him.

"I'm being about as serious as this ridiculous situation calls for!" he hissed in return. Both of them were silent for a long while. "We could tell people that she accepted a better job in the city and she moved into an apartment there to be closer to work. She is an adult, after all. Nobody would think twice about it."

"That does sound good," Irene said. Silence. "But, what if somebody asks for her address? Or her number?"

"We can say that she's still settling into her new place and the phones haven't been hooked up yet. And as for the number… I don't know. But hopefully, that'll buy us enough time to think of something."

"I hope that we don't need to think of a more elaborate lie," Irene said. "I just wish that Sarah would come home."


	3. Chapter 3

The novel mentioned in this chapter is something that I created. Any similarities to any other work of fiction is pure coincidence.

Thank you all so much for your wonderful reviews– they all make me smile and make my day a little bit brighter. I hope that everybody will enjoy this next chapter.

As before, this has not been proof read, so if you spot any glaring errors, please let me know.

* * *

Jareth was a little disappointed that Sarah had worn shorts to sleep in; he had so enjoyed the view that she'd provided the morning before. Jareth leaned in close to her ear and whispered, "Good morning, precious." She jerked awake, clearly startled.

"Jesus…" She muttered as Jareth straightened up to his full height. Sarah looked up at him. "Oh. It's only you." Jareth's cocky smile faded.

"Yes," he said. "I require your presence in the breakfast room in half an hour." And much like he had the morning before, he then proceeded to simply vanish. Sarah sat up in bed, and looked over to the vase of flowers on her nightstand. They had transformed from the long-stemmed purple flowers to a rainbow of carnations. Sarah quickly threw on some of her own clothes before she grabbed the "Language of Flowers" book off from where she'd left it on the writing desk— next to the vase that was also filled with carnations.

She flipped through the book until she found the carnation entry. Although there were separate meanings for the specific colors, there was also a meaning for just the flower in general. "Fascination," Sarah read out loud. She scowled at the next two words. "Divine love." She snapped the book closed and tossed it back onto the table. "You're out of your freaking mind, Jareth," she muttered under her breath as she strode across the room and entered the hall.

The scene was almost exactly the same as it had been the morning before. Jareth was calmly spreading jam on a slice of toast when Sarah came into the breakfast room and sat down. "I wanted to apologize for what I said last night— it was completely uncalled for. That being said, however, I do believe that you left before I could finish what I was going to say." Sarah gave him a chilly look as she helped herself to some eggs, but didn't say anything. "Not all of the children who are wished away were done so by their spoiled older siblings. A lot of the children that I receive have been hurt in ways that are completely unsuitable for discussion at the breakfast table." Sarah looked down at her plate. "These are children who would not have survived to their next birthday, let alone to adulthood, if they continued to remain in such deplorable situations."

"I'm sorry," Sarah said after a moment. "I didn't think about something like that."

"Then perhaps I might implore you to think about something before you go and start accusing people," Jareth said in an even tone that sent shivers down Sarah's spine. "That being said, I believe I owe you another apology— it is not polite at all to toy with people. Not even bratty little girls who are angry at their little brothers." Sarah looked up at that, and glared at the Goblin King, but she didn't put her usual venom into the look.

The room was filled with an awkward silence. Sarah only looked up from her plate in order to help herself to more food. Jareth spent the entire time contemplating the young woman across the table from where he sat.

"Miss Williams," Jareth finally said. Sarah jumped at the soft tenor of his voice, and looked shyly up at him. "I do believe that I have a lighter work-load than I did yesterday. Would you be so kind as to accompany me for a walk in the gardens after lunch?"

"I… Um…" Sarah's eyes darted all over the room, and looked at everything but the Goblin King. "I… I guess?" Jareth smiled when he saw how flustered that his simple request made the woman.

"Then I shall take my leave of your company until lunch, Miss Williams," Jareth said before he vanished. Sarah grabbed one last slice of bacon before she stood and slowly made her way upstairs.

The Labyrinth history book was where Sarah had left it, but she didn't really feel like picking it back up again. Instead, she walked over to a random shelf that was different from the history one, and grabbed the first book that caught her eye.

* * *

Jareth pressed his stamp into the hot wax to make the seal, and after a moment, he picked the envelope up and handed it to a goblin to deliver it. With a sigh, he spun around in his chair and conjured up a crystal to check up on Sarah. He had asked his goblins to keep him updated about what she was doing, but so far, nobody had come in to make a report.

Sarah was in the same chair that she had been in yesterday, her feet curled up under her legs, but she was reading a much smaller book. As he watched her, she absently started to twine a lock of her hair around her finger, and then she bit her lip and her face flushed from whatever she was reading.

Exceptionally curious as to what might cause such a reaction in the young woman, Jareth looked closer at the golden lettering down the spine of the novel in Sarah's hands. When he saw it, he burst out laughing. A Fae bodice ripper. Jareth didn't exactly go out of his way to read the trashy novels, but he prided himself on keeping a wide array of books in his library; and that included the likes of the R-rated novels Sarah was currently reading.

A playful smirk appeared on Jareth's face as he looked away from the crystal for a moment to check the time. It was a little early for lunch, but he wanted to see how Sarah would react if he interrupted her while she was reading that particular novel.

"Is there anything that can't wait?" Jareth asked the two goblins in the room with him.

"No, sir," one goblin answered.

"Good. Then I'm going to take my lunch early," Jareth said, and then transported himself in to the library, in front of where Sarah was. "Good afternoon, precious," Jareth whispered when it was obvious that she was too enchanted with her novel to notice him just appearing right in front of her.

Sarah let out a quiet eep of surprise, and jumped to her feet. "J-jareth," she stammered. Her face was bright red.

"So sorry to have startled you, my dear," Jareth whispered. He reached up and ran his gloved hand through the strand of hair that Sarah had been curling around her finger only a few minutes ago.

"N-no, not at all. I'm just not used to you just appearing," Sarah said. She only stammered a little bit. She pulled away from his touch, but nearly tripped over the chair she'd been sitting in. "Is it lunch time already?"

"It is a little early, but I finished attending to anything urgent, and even wrote some letters that I've been putting off," Jareth said.

"Oh, well. I was just… um… just… reading…" Sarah was holding the book in front of her, but then hid it behind her back. "Just something that I found on the shelves."

"Get bored of the Labyrinth history already, precious?" Jareth asked with a teasing smirk.

"It's honestly a lot to take in all at once," Sarah said in a much calmer voice. Jareth conjured up a light purply-pink rose and presented it to Sarah. She raised an eyebrow as she accepted the blossom.

"For your book," Jareth explained. "Since you used the flower I gave you yesterday as a bookmark."

"Oh, r-right." Sarah opened the book up and thumbed through the pages before she carefully placed the rose into the book, and then set it down on top of the "Origins of the Labyrinth" book on the table next to the chair. Jareth gestured for Sarah to lead the way from the library, and they walked in silence from the room.

They walked side-by side down the hall. Jareth didn't seem to be in any great hurry to go anywhere in particular, so they walked at a slow pace. Sarah looked at him form the side of her eye, and then when he didn't seem to notice her gaze, she turned her head a little bit to look at him better. Jareth turned his head towards Sarah, and offered her a sly smile; she quickly turned her head forward and scowled. Jareth chuckled a little under his breath.

They continued on down the endless hallway for several minutes in silence. "Where are we going?"

"In case you hadn't noticed yet, my castle is an exceptionally magical place. It responds to the desires and wishes of those in it, and then responds accordingly."

"I had noticed, but sometimes, I don't always ends up where I want to be."

"Well, don't think of the castle as simply like your house, that just has a spell cast over it. Think of it more like a sentient being. It knows what's going on around it, and if you want something that directly conflicts with what somebody else wants, then…" Jareth offered an absent shrug.

That explains my midnight walk, Sarah thought to herself. I wanted to leave, but Jareth wanted me to stay. So, the castle didn't provide me an opening until I decided to try and find the kitchen instead.

Jareth watched as Sarah licked her lips absently; she seemed to be lost in thought. He wondered what she was thinking about; what had his home provided or done for her that was that fascinating? "Sarah?" Jareth quietly asked. She blinked slowly and then looked up at him.

"Sorry; lost in my thoughts," she said with an absent smile. "Shall we go to lunch now?" The hallway in front of them morphed into a massive archway that lead into the breakfast room. The breakfast spread had been replaced with cold-cuts and rolls. Sarah sat down and started to make herself a sandwich.

"Some watermelon, my dear?" Jareth asked, and offered her a bowl filled with squares of the red fruit. Sarah speared several pieces with a fork and dropped them onto her plate. Jareth put the bowl back down, lifted a piece of the fruit that was on his plate to his lips, and bit down on it, all without breaking eye contact with Sarah. She seemed rather oblivious to his actions as she'd just finished putting her sandwich together, and took a bite out of it.

After a moment of being ignored by Sarah, Jareth offered her first some grapes, then some kiwi. She accepted both of them, but then returned her attention back to her plate. Finally, she'd finished everything that she'd put onto her plate, and Jareth gave her an expectant look. She looked up at him nervously. "Honestly, Sarah. You're acting like you're about to walk to your death." Jareth stood and walked around the table to her. He offered her his hand, but she stood up on her own.

Since it was clear that she was not going to accept his arm, Jareth gestured towards the wall of windows, where a door had appeared that lead outside. Sarah started towards it, and Jareth followed her.

For a while, Jareth followed Sarah where ever she wanted to go. She would occasionally stop to ask about a plant or a flower, but their walk was otherwise silent. Finally, she turned to him and said, "Those flower that you keep giving me… They've got a meaning, don't they?"

"Of course they've got a meaning, precious. Everything has meaning."

"No, I mean… I was wondering out loud last night about why my room was filled with hyacinths, and this book appeared in my room. 'The Language of Flowers'."

"People seem to enjoy applying almost abstract meanings to things, so it was only a matter of time until somebody wrote a book about it," Jareth said.

"But you know about the book, too, right? Well, not the book, but the meaning of the flowers that you've been giving me."

"Yes, of course." Jareth's smile grew wider. "Why? Are you thinking about making me a bouquet of flowers, my dear?"

"I don't have the book with me," Sarah said. The book appeared in Jareth's hand, and he presented it to her. She paused to read through it for a few minutes. "Hm, how about some orange lilies to start out with?"

"Sarah! You wound me."

"Maybe with a couple of bluebells and geraniums in for good measure. Ooh! And some marigolds!"

"Well, I think that that's enough of that, my dear," Jareth said. The book transformed itself into a daffodil.

"Honestly," Sarah said with a roll of her eyes. "You don't like what I'm saying, so you just transform the book into a flower?"

"Yes, of course," Jareth said with a giant grin on his face. "Perhaps something else to read, instead?" He presented her with the novel that she'd been reading earlier.

"N-no," Sarah stammered, and Jareth smirked when her face became bright red.

"You don't like it?" Jareth asked with hint of mock sorrow in his voice.

"The writing is fine, but I'm not overly keen on that type of novel. That's all," Sarah whispered as she half-turned away from the Goblin King.

Jareth thought for a moment before he replaced the trashy novel in his hands with another book. This one was filled with adventure and heroes and wicked villains; it was more the kind of book that Sarah would probably enjoy. "How about this, then?" he asked as he presented it to her.

"'The Cave Behind the Waterfall'," Sarah read out loud. She looked up at Jareth. "What's it about?"

"If I recall correctly, it's about a young woman who goes in search of treasure," Jareth said. Sarah hesitantly took the book from Jareth, and briefly ran her fingers over the front cover, before she opened the book up and flipped to the first page.

The garden shifted around them, and where they had previously stood in the middle of a paved walkway, surrounded by many different types of flowers, they now stood on a grassy bank, near a large shade tree. Sarah looked up at the Goblin King, startled, but Jareth simply gestured that Sarah should take a seat under the tree. Sarah walked up to the tree and sat down so that her back was against the rough bark.

"Do read out loud, my dear," Jareth said as he sat down next to her.

"A-alright," Sarah stammered before she turned her attention to the book. "'Chapter One: A Funeral. The stairs down into the basement had always scared me. Not only was the basement dark, but the stairs were old and likely to collapse. So, it was little wonder that the stairs that had frightened me so much as a child ended up being the thing that I despised, as they ended up taking away the only person who ever seemed to care about me: my mother…'"

* * *

"'…"I don't know who you think that you are, but you've got no right to boss me around like this!" I screamed at the man in front of me. He didn't even flinch, and I wasn't even sure if he'd heard me, despite the fact that he was only a few feet in front of me. So, I marched up the steps, and slapped his face with my open palm as hard as I could. That seemed to-'" Sarah broke off when Jareth burst out laughing. "I'm sorry; is this funny to you?"

"Yes," Jareth agreed. It was the following afternoon, and the two of them were again sitting under the lone shade tree on a small hill. The castle was directly in front of them, but further off in the distance, the Labyrinth could be seen. Sarah scowled at the Goblin King. "What? You don't see it?"

"See what?"

"You and Astrid have a lot in common."

"I've never smacked you."

"No, but you've certainly lost your temper with me often enough," Jareth said with a laugh.

"Look, you're the one who insisted that we come out here to continue the book. If you're just going to make fun of me, then I'm going to go inside."

"I am sorry; please continue."

Sarah rolled her eyes and turned back to the book.

* * *

"'But even though the water continued to crash down over me, and the guard's fingers dug roughly into my arms as he held me tight, the only thing that I was aware of was Samuel's still, bloody body in front of me. "No," I whispered, and roughly struggled against my captor. "No," I said again, louder this time. My cry caught the attention of Peony, and she looked to me with her overly cruel eyes. "But yes," she said. "I had to k-kill…"'" Sarah sniffled loudly. "'"To kill him. After all, he is but a m-monster…"'"

"My dear, are you crying?" Jareth whispered. He was lying flat on his back in the grass next to Sarah, but he propped himself up on his elbow to look at the young woman in front of him. Sarah hid her face behind the book, but then lifted the arm that wasn't holding the book to her face.

"N-no," she protested weakly. Jareth crawled over to her and plucked the book from her hands. "Hey!" Her eyes were wet and her nose was dripping, so Jareth presented her with a handkerchief.

"Do you want to stop for the day and finish this when you're not overly emotional?" Jareth asked her gently.

"I'm emotional because of the stupid book!" Sarah said before she blew her nose. "And we're almost finished. I want to find out how it ends!"

"Alright, but I won't have an overly emotional narrator reading," Jareth said as he settled against the tree next to Sarah. He scanned the page before he started to read.

* * *

"'"I can't even promise you the gold anymore, because Peony took it all," Samuel whispered. I brushed his damp and still slightly bloody hair away from his face. "Don't be silly; I don't want the gold anymore," I insisted. "Was it ever really about the gold?" he asked. I didn't even have to pause to consider his question. "No." Samuel smiled up at me, and, for the first time since Peony had stabbed him, it didn't look like it pained him at all. "Astrid, the only thing that I've got left to offer you is myself." "That's the only thing that I want." "Good. Because I think that you're stuck with me forever." "Forever is all that I ask for."'"

Sarah's eyes opened at the sound of Jareth closing the book with a slight smack. She looked out over Jareth's kingdom, which was awash in tones of pink and orange with the onset of night.

"Well?" Jareth asked, his voice a gentle whisper.

"This is all wet and snotty," Sarah said as she held up the handkerchief Jareth had given her earlier. In an instant, it was clean and dry, and Sarah then blew her nose. "That was good," she said after a moment. "I liked that."

"So, my dear, what shall we read next?"

"What? No!" Sarah exclaimed. "You can't just finish one book and then immediately start in on an unrelated one!"

"Then how, pray-tell, should it be done?"

"After you finish a really great book, you've got to wallow in the misery of the book's ending, and question what you're even going to do with your life now that it's done."

"That sounds overly time consuming," Jareth said with all seriousness. "How long does this book mourning process take?"

"I think that we should have throughly mourned 'The Cave Behind the Waterfall' after lunch tomorrow."

"Oh good. I was starting to worry that this was a week-long process," Jareth said with a smirk.

"Don't be silly, Jareth; it's a book, not your pet," Sarah said with a roll of her eyes.

"Ah, well, it's getting late, and we should probably head back for dinner now," Jareth said. He stood, and then offered Sarah his hand. She accepted it, and once she was standing, Jareth transported the both of them into the formal dining room. Sarah didn't even bat an eyelash at the pink gown that Jareth had dressed her in for the evening meal.

"You know, I knew that Peony was evil, but I never imagined that she would be evil enough to stab Samuel," Sarah said as she helped herself to some food.

Jareth opened his mouth to reply, but a small, green-skinned goblin appeared at his elbow. "An urgent message, Your Majesty," the goblin said. He held a silver platter with an envelope upon it; Jareth picked up the envelope, broke the wax seal, and started to read the message. Then, he dismissed the goblin with an absent wave of his hand without looking up from the letter.

"What is it?" Sarah asked softly.

"It's my mother," Jareth said.

"Your mother?" Sarah asked, a little surprised.

"Yes. Contrary to what you might believe about me, but I did not spring forth as a fully-grown man," Jareth told Sarah with a smirk.

"I never believed that. I'm just a little surprised, that's all. Is she okay?"

"Yes, yes, she's perfectly fine. She's just throwing a ball, and she's invited me, of course," he said. Sarah scowled at him. "What is it, precious?"

"You are not taking me to a ball, Jareth," Sarah protested loudly.

"I see," Jareth said. "You are perfectly welcome to stay here while I go out. However, I do believe that I will have to ask your father to accompany me."

"What?" Sarah gasped. "What is wrong with you? Our agreement was that I had to stay with you! You never said anything about going to some party!"

"I do believe that part of the agreement that we had was that you would do as you were told. It's just one ball, Sarah. A few hours, at most."

"Well, screw you!" Sarah said. She stood abruptly, threw her napkin down onto the table, and stormed from the room.

Jareth sighed deeply and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Maybe it had been a mistake to push her like that, but he wanted to take her to his mother's ball; not only to thwart his mother's overly-obvious attempts at match-making, but also to show Sarah off to the court.

He thought that they'd been making excellent process the past week, as she read to him. He had been right to ask her to read to him, as she'd been so madly in love with the novel. But, whenever he seemed to be making any sort of progress with Sarah, it was the proverbial "one step forward, two steps back".

* * *

Gregory Cameron scowled as he paced around his tiny living room. He paused after a moment and stared out the front window; it looked out onto the street, but, most importantly to Greg, the Williams's house.

It had been a week since he'd last seen Sarah. And no matter what he asked Irene or Robert (and on a desperate attempt, he'd asked Toby! TOBY! The boy was five years old, for crying out loud!), they refused to tell him where Sarah had gone other than "she moved".

A week ago, Greg had watched out the same window as Sarah had put a single suitcase into the back seat of Robert's car, and they had driven off. About half an hour later, Robert had returned, sans his daughter. Would Sarah have really moved away from home with only a single suitcase? And where had Robert taken her that was so distant, but yet, only took him half an hour to return?

After Greg's first conversation with Irene after Sarah's disappearance, he'd started to ask the neighbors. Most hadn't even realized that the girl wasn't around anymore until Greg pointed it out. After a while, the other neighbors came back to Greg and reported that the three remaining Williams's had all told them the same thing that they'd told Greg: She'd moved.

When Greg had pressed some of the older neighbors harder, they eventually told him that Irene had promised to give them Sarah's address when she'd settled into her new place. Which only frustrated the young man further; Irene had not said anything about a mailing address or even a phone number to him. Why were the two elderly couples who lived further down the block special enough to get even promises, why wasn't he?

"Look, dude, I'm really worried about you," said Greg's roommate, Dustin. "You've been acting completely crazy since that chick across the street moved away."

"Honestly, do you really believe for two seconds that she would just up and leave like that?"

"Um… yeah. People our age do it all of the time. I mean, this is like… what? The third place we've lived in in three years now?"

"Well, I don't think that Sarah is the type of person who would just move away without telling everybody goodbye. I think that something happened to her. Don't you think that her family is acting rather suspicious?" Greg asked. Dustin came to stand in front of the window, and they watched as Robert and Toby walked out the front door; Robert was carrying a baseball bat and a mitt and Toby was tossing a baseball between his hands as the two of them started down towards the park.

"Yes. A father taking his son to go play some ball in the park. How suspicious," Dustin said dryly.

"I'm serious!" Greg insisted. "Every time I ask about Sarah, Irene cuts me off and makes some excuse to leave!"

"And I'm serious that you're insane! Sarah's a grown woman; she can take care of herself," Dustin said. Greg just scowled at his roommate. "Look, dude, if you're really certain that something horrible happened to Sarah, you should file a missing person's report."

"Hm, yes. Alright. I think I will. If Irene won't tell us where Sarah is, then maybe the police showing up at her door and asking about her step-daughter's disappearance will scare the information out of her."

* * *

Sarah sat up and rubbed at her damp, red eyes as somebody knocked gently but persistently at her bedroom door. "Come in," she called after a moment. She sat up and put her feet on the floor as Jareth came into the room. "Sarah, I wanted to come an apologize for my words earlier. They were completely uncalled for. I never said anything about attending social events during your stay here, and it was rude of me to mention your father." Sarah just stared blankly at the Goblin King. "That being said, I would appreciate it if you were to accompany me to my mother's ball."

"Why?" Sarah said after a beat. Jareth heaved a sigh, and Sarah wondered if he was going to actually answer.

"My mother…" Jareth started, but then closed his mouth and shook his head. "I'm over 1,500 years old, Sarah." She blinked slowly, but remained silent. "My mother believes that I should have a queen; if not somebody to rule by my side, then somebody to provide me with an heir to my throne. She's always trying to push women onto me."

"What? So now I'm your excuse?" Sarah hissed as she stood up. Jareth simply presented her with a bouquet of purple hyacinths, pink camellias, gloxinias, and primroses. She didn't accept the flowers, but only raised an eyebrow at Jareth. An instant later, they replaced the vase full of purple hyacinths on Sarah's night stand. Before Sarah could say anything about that, Jareth was gone. She let out a soft cry of frustration, picked up the "Language of Flowers" book and looked through it.

Sarah already knew too well at this point what the purple hyacinths meant, so she instead skipped to the pink camellias: longing for you. Sarah felt her face heat up as she read the words, and quickly turned the page. She then located the gloxinias: love at first sight. What? With slightly shaking hands, Sarah flipped through the pages until she found the primroses: I can't live without you.

If Sarah hadn't already been sitting down, she would have fallen down. She closed the book and looked over to the bouquet of flowers. What did that even mean?

She stood up and walked into the sitting room portion of her quarters, so that she couldn't see the flowers anymore. She absently walked back and forth across the tiny space, but every time she caught a glimpse of the flowers, she'd turn around and face the other way.

Finally, she turned around but instead of turning around once she got to the door, she opened it. Where there once was hallway was now the castle's gardens. Sarah doubled back into her room for a second to grab the "Language of Flowers" book before she set out.

"I can't believe that somebody filed a missing persons report for Sarah!" Irene hissed to her husband in the living room. Two uniformed officers sat at their tiny kitchen table, and spoke with Toby.

"Well, you do have to admit that it is rather suspicious," Robert said in a hushed voice. "She just vanishes one day and we refuse to give anybody her address, phone number, or a specific place where she is."

"Yes, but we can't exactly say that she volunteered herself as collateral for some… psychotic fairy! They'll think that we're crazy, on top of having killed her! What are we going to do?"

"First off, we're going to get rid of the police officers," Robert whispered, his voice calm. "Then, I'm going to go and see if I can find the place where Sarah went. If she comes back, even for a little bit, then the police won't have any reason to question us."

"That's a lot of 'ifs', Robert," Irene said.

"But it's the only thing that's standing between us and a possible homicide case."

Five minutes later, Irene and Robert watched the police cruiser pull away from in front of their house. "I wonder who filed the missing persons report on Sarah," Robert said as Irene twitched the curtain back into place.

"I'll bet everything that we've got left that it was Greg," Irene said with a scowl.

"Greg? Why him?" Robert asked with a look of surprise.

"He's been constantly asking where Sarah is, if he could have her address or her phone number, ever since she left. Some of the other neighbors have said that he's been asking them if they have any information of where Sarah is. The Jones, you know, at the end of the block, they told me that they eventually told Greg that I told them that I would give them Sarah's address just so that they could get Greg to stop asking. But, they said that it only just seemed to make him mad."

"Well, do you think that I should go and try to find Sarah now?" Robert asked.

"No," Irene said slowly. "If I'm correct about Greg, he'll be watching the house right now."

"Well, if I'm only going to go get Sarah, then what's the problem?" Robert asked.

"Really, dear? You really want to lead Greg into where ever it is that Sarah is now?"

"If this guy could just make some portal into his world to let me in and out at his own will, then I think that he's perfectly capable to keeping Greg out."

"Well, I'd still feel better if you waited until later to go out. It won't seem as suspicious. Pretend like you're going to the store for some milk."

"Alright," Robert reluctantly agreed.

* * *

Jareth heaved a deep sigh as he looked at the bouquet of flowers that one of his goblins had just delivered. Directly from Sarah. The goblins had told him when she'd left her room and gone into the gardens, but he had only just watched as she moved around and carefully picked some flowers.

Aside from the purple hyacinths, there were also bittersweets, striped and yellow chrysanthemums, and geraniums. He didn't need a book to tell him that Sarah had rejected him. Well, at least there weren't any orange lilies, but this wasn't much better.

Maybe he shouldn't have been so blunt with the flowers earlier. But he wanted for her to know that she wasn't just some excuse that he would give to his mother. He generally wanted to be with Sarah.

But he couldn't quite figure out how to tell her. He contemplated if there was something else he could do to show her how he really felt about her, when he felt a quasi-summons from the Aboveworld.

And it wasn't just some human wishing that they could meet a Fae; no, this person was specifically wishing to find Jareth.

Exceptionally curious, as most humans he came into contact with eventually forgot about him and moved on with their lives, Jareth transformed into an owl and flew out the window to meet the human.

He found Robert Williams. Yes, of course it would be Sarah's father.

Jareth turned the car off with a wave of his hand, and then knocked on the window.

"Oh, thank goodness that I found you," Robert said as he opened the car door and got out. "It's really urgent that Sarah return home. At least, for a little while."

"Oh? Why's that?" Jareth asked with a raised eyebrow. Robert told the Goblin King about how the police came looking for Sarah after somebody filed a missing persons report on her. Jareth mentally cursed— if Sarah found out about this, she'd want to go back. And probably no amount of threatening to imprison her father could keep her with him. But, he couldn't say that to her father, so he said, "This is a bit of a problem, yes. I will take care of the matter."

"Sarah will come home?" Robert asked hopefully.

"I never said that. I'll simply just let the issue of Sarah fall to the back of the minds of the lawmen, as well as this… Greg character. They won't completely forget that she existed, but it will be like the issue happened a long time ago, and they had more important things to think about."

"I suppose that this is probably the best that I'm going to get for now." Robert moved to get back into his car. "But, please, before I go, tell me that Sarah is alright?"

"She is perfectly fine," Jareth told him in an even tone. "I would never hurt her." With a slight nod of his head, Robert got back into his car. Jareth transformed into an owl and flew further into the Aboveworld— he had work to do.


	4. Chapter 4

Once again, the story mentioned in this chapter is something of my invention, and any similarities to any other work is pure coincidence.

Thank you all so much for the reviews, the follows, and the favorites. It really brightens my day when I get an email of one of the three.

As usual, this chapter has not been proof read, so if you spot any cringe-worthy grammatical mistakes, please let me know so that I might fix it.

May 12, 2014 edit: Thanks to Meagan416 for pointing out a tiny little spell-check error on my part!

* * *

"Ow!" Sarah jumped a little when the pin poked into her side.

"So sorry, milady!" the young goblin who had accidentally stabbed Sarah exclaimed.

"Why are we doing this again? I thought that Jareth could just… poof up clothes whenever he felt like it."

"Milady, those clothes already existed. You cannot create something out from nothing."

"Jareth… already had dresses for me?"

"Yes, milady," the goblin seamstress agreed. "He just put them on you with his magic, that's all." The goblin went back to work, and the second seamstress came into the room with even more fabric.

"Not more dresses," Sarah complained loudly.

"His Majesty insisted, milady," the second goblin said as she dropped the fabric onto the bed. Sarah heaved a sigh and looked over to the stained glass window. It had been depicting a rainy garden ever since she'd woken up that morning. It didn't seem overly angry— just depressed. Sarah wondered if she might have gone too far in picking the flowers for Jareth.

But, he has to know how I feel, Sarah reminded herself again. It's not fair for him to think that he's actually got some sort of a chance with me, when he's quite honestly… Sarah trailed off, even in her own thoughts. She didn't even want to even think about thinking about that thought.

"Ow!" She jumped again as the seamstress accidentally poked her with a pin again.

* * *

After another hour of torture by the means of the seamstresses, Sarah wandered to the library to see about finishing the trashy novel that she'd picked up. In the mornings, after breakfast, Jareth went off and did whatever needed to be done in order to keep his Kingdom running smoothly. But then, after lunch, they'd go outside, sit under the large shade tree, and Sarah read to him.

They'd finished the book yesterday, and, despite herself, Sarah was actually sort of looking forward to what Jareth might suggest to read next.

After Jareth had given her the flowers that all but declared his love for her the night before, she hadn't seen him. He normally came to wake her up for breakfast, but this morning, it had been a goblin. And he hadn't been down at breakfast, either.

As the afternoon wore on, and Jareth didn't appear to escort her to lunch, Sarah began to worry. What if he was really depressed about her rejection? She didn't think that the Goblin King would harm himself, because he always seemed to put his kingdom before himself.

Sarah eventually went down to lunch on her own, and quickly ate a sandwich before she went back to the library. But she found it exceptionally difficult to focus on the intense romance of the characters in the novel.

With the book in hand, Sarah left the library and then stopped the first goblin that she came across. "Excuse me, do you know where Jareth is?"

"His Majesty has been very busy all night and all day today," the goblin said with a nod of his head. "To not be disturbed unless its a dire emergency. Like entire kitchen on fire." With another nod of his head, the goblin scampered off.

Sarah heaved a deep sigh and turned to the first door closest to her— the castle moved the hallway around her so that the door opened up to her bedroom. Sarah walked over to the window and hopped up onto the narrow ledge— there was just enough space for her to sit comfortably if she pressed up against the glass.

With her face against the dark patterned glass, it was much easier to tell what the weather was like outside, although it was starkly contrasted with the sunny day outside. She absently rubbed her thumb along the corner of the pages of the book several times before she opened it to where she'd last left off. But then she flipped back several pages and started to read from a part of the book that she actually remembered.

After a while, when the natural light from the room started to become dim, but the candles had yet to spring to life, Sarah looked out the window to gage how late that it was, and was a little startled to see that the rainy stained glass picture had been replaced by a calm, starry night.

Sarah thought that the stained glass window reflected more upon Jareth's mood than some desire, because if it were up to Sarah what the window showed, it would show her family, or maybe a unicorn or a dragon. When Jareth had filled her room with purple hyacinths, even the window had been filled with a glass representation of the flower. But Sarah had never seen this image before.

She hopped down from the windowsill, put the lavender rose back in to mark her place, and carefully set the book down on her night stand before she walked to the door. She paused for a moment, her hand inches from the doorknob, before she touched the cool, metal surface and opened the door.

The room beyond was not a room in the castle that Sarah had seen before. It was decorated in with dark wood and red and white fabric, like the decor in the rest of the castle, but it was probably at least twice as big as her room was. Sarah's first impression was that it looked like the library, only in miniature, but there was a roaring fire in a massive fireplace, and a writing desk that was piled with papers against one wall.

As Sarah looked around the room, her eyes eventually landed on the fluffy, spikey hair of the Goblin King, who was fast asleep at his desk, and was using a stack of correspondence as a pillow. Sarah gave a sound that was half sigh, half chuckle, and walked over to the desk.

"Jareth," she said softly, her fingers hovering over his shoulder. "Jareth," she said again, a bit louder, and gently touched his shoulder.

"I thought that I specifically threatened to bog anybody…" Jareth started as he jerked awake. Sarah took a cautious step back, and clutched her hand to her chest, as if she'd been burned. "Sarah," Jareth said carefully.

"Sorry. You were asleep," she said. Jareth cleared his throat and started to reorganize the papers that he'd been sleeping on.

"How did you get in here?"

"I was worried about you," Sarah said. "I opened my bedroom door and stepped right in here."

"Of course you did," Jareth said sourly.

"If you want, I'll leave," she said. She motioned over her shoulder towards the door, and took a careful step backwards.

"No, you don't have to go," Jareth insisted. Sarah stilled again, and her hands went limp at her sides. "What time is it?" Before Sarah could answer, a clock appeared before Jareth before it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared. "Have you eaten yet?" Sarah shook her head. Jareth stood and came around his desk. "I worked through lunch, and I apologize for that."

"It looks like you've got a lot of work, and I think that it's more important that you keep your kingdom in good order," Sarah said as they left the room and headed downstairs to the formal dining room. Sarah was a little surprised that Jareth didn't put her into a dress, nor did he change his own clothes. "What? No wardrobe changes?" Sarah asked as they sat down at the table.

"I'm afraid that my exhaustion is due to over-working my magic, precious," Jareth explained.

"Is everything alright?" Sarah asked with a frown.

"The situation was taken care of, so you don't need to worry about it," Jareth said evenly. Sarah tried for several minutes to get the information about what had happened to cause Jareth to use that much magic to make him so completely exhausted, but gave up after several minutes of non-verbal sounds from the Goblin King.

After they had eaten their meal, Jareth lead Sarah back to the library. She had had little reason to go into the library after dark, and found that the soft, flickering lights of the candles made for an exceptionally soothing, almost romantic atmosphere. "Sit down, and I'll find something for us to read. That is, of course, assuming that you feel as if we have sufficiently mourned the ending of 'The Cave Behind the Waterfall'?"

"I told you that we would be finished mourning it by lunch today," Sarah said with a roll of her eyes. But she moved past Jareth and took a seat on one of the sofas by the fire place. After a moment, Jareth pulled a book off the shelf and joined Sarah on the sofa. "'The Mud Children'," Sarah read off the front cover before she opened the book and flipped to the first page.

Her gentle voice filled the room, the only other sound was the occasional pop and hiss of the fire that roared in the fireplace. After the first couple of pages, Jareth lay his head down on Sarah's lap, and she absently ran her fingers through his soft hair.

"'…and the heavy rains that continued to wash away our village, year after year. But still, we would continue-'"

"Sarah, can I ask you a question?" Jareth interrupted her.

"Um, I guess so, yeah."

"Your parents… why do they not live in the same house as before?" Jareth asked. Sarah looked down at the Goblin King with a rather surprised look on her face.

"Well, we moved," Sarah said simply.

"The house where your family currently lives is not of the same social economical standards as your previous house was. What happened?"

"Dad… um… My dad lost his job," Sarah said hesitantly.

"Your father must have made a lot of money to affect your entire family that much."

"Yeah. He was a lawyer. Worked a lot of high-profile cases."

"And it was one of these cases that caused him to lose his job?"

"Yeah. This guy had viciously murdered his wife, their two children, and then the family that lived next door to him after the neighbors saw him burying his family in the back yard. My dad didn't want to do the case, because any idiot with eyes could see that the guy was guilty, even though he kept pleading that he'd been set up. But my father did the case, went through the trial. Low and behold, the jury found the guy guilty. The guy was sentenced to death, but before he could fry… Oh, um… we put people to death by electrocution."

"Yes, I'm aware. But continue."

"Before he could fry, the guy said that my dad intentionally threw his case because he'd accepted a very large bribe."

"And did he? Accept a bribe, I mean?"

"No, of course not!" Sarah snapped. "Dad would never do something like that! But nobody believed anything that my dad had to say. But, the only reason why the guy said it in the first place was because he wanted to extend his death sentence… maybe get it overturned if enough people thought that something fishy had been going on during the trial. And it seemed silly that my dad would be convicted based soley upon the word of a man who had killed his family, and his neighbors, because my father was such a good lawyer. But the guy who owned the legal firm where my dad worked said that he couldn't have somebody who was on trial like that working for him, so he fired my dad. We thought that we'd be okay, because we had a lot of money saved up, but that ran out a lot faster than we'd anticipated, and we had to sell off a lot of our things, and then we eventually had to sell the house. I dropped out of school and moved back in with them to work, and to help Irene out with Toby."

Sarah paused and looked down at Jareth. "The night that my dad accidentally stumbled into your castle, he was coming back from talking with his former boss." Sarah let out a sarcastic laugh. "As it turns out, the people who were investigating the man's claims that my father took an extensive bribe were having a lot of trouble coming up with enough evidence to support his claims. But my dad's former boss told my dad that he still couldn't hire my dad back, because there wasn't evidence that my dad hadn't taken a bribe, either."

"It must have been exceptionally difficult for you to have adjust to such an abrupt change like that," Jareth said.

"I was the one who ended up working two jobs so that we could continue to live in a house. My step-mom, Irene, got a job, too, but she's never really been trained to do much of anything, and since I dropped out from school before I could finish, neither of us have really great jobs. My dad would sometimes do odd jobs for some of our elderly neighbors— things that they can't do as easily anymore."

"And yet, you gave up helping your family in order to save your father."

"Toby is five now," Sarah whispered. She stared absently into the fireplace. "It wouldn't be right for me to just let my father leave and let Toby grow up without a father. They will eventually realize that there was no bribe, and that my father is completely innocent, and he'll get his job back. And everything will go back to the way it was before. They don't need me there… I was just a burden on the family, because I had a lot of debt from school. And that was probably causing a lot of undue strain on all of us as well."

They were both silent for a long while. The fire crackled, and they heard a goblin giggling in the distance. Sarah absently ran her fingers through Jareth's hair. "Sarah, I wanted to apologize for the flowers I gave you yesterday. It probably wasn't the most intelligent message for me to give you. I've been watching you for a long time now… before you wished your brother away."

"I know," Sarah whispered. Her fingers stilled in his hair. "And I'm sorry, but I still can't see you as anything but the evil monster who kidnapped my baby brother, sent the cleaners after me, almost dropped me into the Bog of Eternal Stench, and drugged me."

"You know that both you and your brother were never in any real danger, right?"

"Well, I know it now!" Sarah hissed. "But it's still hard for me to change my opinion of what happened, no matter how nice you are to me. Not to mention the fact that you tricked my father here, in order to get at me." She picked up the book again with slightly shaking hands, flipped through the pages until she found where she'd left off, and continued to read. "'But still, we would continue to rebuild every time our village was destroyed. Even though it would make much more sense for us to move away, we remained.'"

* * *

"Today, instead of going out to read, I think that our time would be better spent if I taught you how to dance," Jareth said after they'd finished their lunch. "My mother will expect anybody that I bring to one of her balls to know at least that."

"No social etiquette?" Sarah asked in a teasing way.

"You are more well-behaved than most of my subjects, so we'll chalk that up as a win and focus on the dance." The table melted away, and they were left standing in the surprisingly large and airy breakfast room. Jareth walked up to Sarah, put one hand on her waist, grabbed her other hand, and he slowly started to teach her the basic foot movements. "Don't try to lead me, Sarah; I'm leading you."

"This seemed much easier when you drugged me," Sarah muttered under her breath.

"That wasn't real; just a dream that we both shared," Jareth said with a slight laugh. Sarah blushed and looked down, but Jareth cupped her chin with his hand and lifted her head. "Do not look at the ground, as it will only lead to toes being stepped on. The ground will always be there."

"Isn't there supposed to be music?" Sarah asked. Jareth released his hold on Sarah's face and gave a lazy wave of his hand; slow waltz music started to play, seemingly from nowhere.

They kept going for several minutes in silence. "Yes, great," Jareth said, and the music picked up the pace.

"What sort of music will there be at your mother's ball?" Sarah asked.

"Knowing my mother's taste in music, probably not much different than this," Jareth said.

"Will I have to dance with anybody else?"

"Not unless you don't want to. Honestly, Sarah, it's not like anybody is going to force you to dance."

"You did," Sarah said with a scowl.

"You do not enjoy dancing with me, precious?" Jareth asked, his voice low. Sarah blushed and lowered her eyes to avoid looking into his mismatched eyes. Jareth abruptly released Sarah and took a step back from her. "I think that that is more than enough for one day. I have something to attend to, but hopefully, it will not take too long, so please, do not get too involved in something." Sarah gave him a look that was a little difficult for him to read. Was it disappointment? Or maybe frustration?

Jareth was a little hesitant to leave her when she was giving him that undecipherable look. But, he did teleport himself from the room, and then paced around his office for a few minutes. Maybe his plan was starting to work, after all. But, he knew that it was going to take a lot more than some flowers, books, and waltzing in order to win her over.

But, her main issue seemed to be her lack of trust in him. She'd told him so last night; she still saw him as the villain in her story, rather than the hero. And he certainly had not bought himself any favors in the way that he'd tricked her back into his castle. Jareth wondered if he should let her go home. Although it had nearly killed him the first time he had returned her home, nearly five years ago, he knew that she would be exceptionally grateful to return home.

And maybe, if he told her that she could come back, she would.

But, not right now. Not when he had his mother's ball to worry about.

Jareth sat down heavily in an armchair, and conjured a crystal to watch what Sarah was doing. She was sitting on the windowsill in her bedroom, her forehead pressed up against the stained glass. The window reflected his current mood— uncertain— by displaying the sun peaking out from behind dark clouds after a thundery storm. Jareth sometimes wished that his castle wasn't so in-tune with his moods, because Sarah would probably pick up on it eventually… if she hadn't already.

He sat and watched Sarah for several minutes— although she had a book (Jareth recognized it as another trashy novel), she held it loosely in her hands. She stared blankly out the window, and it made Jareth wonder what she was thinking about so intently. He knew several spells that would delve into her mind, but on the list of things that would not gain Sarah's trust, invading her mind with a spell seemed to rank pretty high.

He also knew that he didn't really have anything urgent to attend to at the moment. He could go to her and take her out side to the tree, and she would read to him. She would probably even let him lay his head on her lap like she had last night.

But he needed some distance from her at the moment. Even though he wanted nothing more than to go to her, he needed to try and keep his distance until she was more comfortable with him.

* * *

It hadn't been overly cloudy at all for most of the day, but the clouds seemed like they were gathering now for the intense purpose of raining on them during their daily reading.

If Sarah had noticed the drastic change in the weather, she didn't let it interrupt her reading. "'"But the only thing that we've got left now is just rubble," David said with a frown as he looked out over the ruins of what had once been our town. The place where-'" Sarah jumped as a massive crack of thunder ripped through the air. "Jeez, that scared me!"

Jareth looked up at Sarah from where he lay next to her. He gently pressed his fingers into her hip, and she jumped again at the contact. Jareth was certain that she would ask him to stop touching her, but she only pressed her lips into a thin line, and her eyes went back to the book.

There was another loud crack of thunder, before the skies opened up. Sarah let out a shriek of protest as the icy water dumped over her. Jareth transported both of them into the castle. His office was the first place that popped into his head, and a second later, they were sitting in front of the fire, dripping wet. Sarah's shriek quickly turned into laughter, and she tossed the book, which was dry thanks to a protection spell, onto the chair before she stood up. Jareth stood as well.

"That was exceptionally unexpected," Sarah said with a laugh as she wrung the water out from her t-shirt.

"If you'd been watching the sky, I don't think that it was really at all unexpected," Jareth said coolly. With a snap of his fingers, their drenched clothes were replaced with dry ones.

"Well, maybe not so much the rain," Sarah said as she lifted up the excessively long sleeve of the navy dress Jareth had put her in. "But more like how quickly that it came on. I think that I'm more used to a couple of drops and then it slowly starts to rain harder and harder." She picked up the book off the chair. "Well, at least the book's okay."

"It would be foolish to run a kingdom of goblins and not have some intensive protection spells on the books," Jareth said with a smirk.

"Right," Sarah said slowly. Although most of the ones that worked directly for Jareth were normally okay, she'd seen the trails of destruction that some of them tended to leave behind.

"Would you care to continue reading now?" Jareth asked, and he gestured towards the sofa, which had replaced the two chairs in front of the fire.

"I don't know how people can stand to wear corsets," Sarah complained as she thumbed through the book to find where she'd left off. "I can barely breathe."

"I didn't put it on tightly at all," Jareth said. Sarah blushed and focused her attention on the book in her hands; she was silent for several minutes.

"It's too restricting, that's all," she finally whispered. With another snap of his fingers, Sarah was dressed in the lose t-shirt and shorts that she slept in.

"There are many appealing qualities of the dresses that the women here wear, but there are also many appealing qualities of the clothes that you wear, precious," Jareth said with a smirk. His eyes lazily roamed down Sarah's bare legs before he looked up again and met Sarah's scowling gaze.

"I think we're done here," Sarah said. She spun on her heel and marched out from the room. The laugh that followed her out from the room made her blood boil. How dare he, she fumed as she threw open the door to her room. She barely even noticed the orchids in the vase on her night stand and the sunny garden in the stained glass as she stormed to the wardrobe and started to dig through her clothes until she came up with a pair of sweatpants.

After she took a long, warm bath that took the chill that had crept into Sarah's bones after the rain storm, Sarah pulled on the sweatpants and her baggy t-shirt, and pulled out the "Language of Flowers" book to figure out what Jareth was trying to tell her now.

"Love and beauty," the entry read. Sarah's scowl only deepened.

"Just because you're pretty, too, doesn't stop you from being a massive JERK!" Sarah yelled at nothing in the hopes that the Goblin King was listening. She stormed around the room for a few minutes before she flopped face-first onto her bed; she grabbed one of the pillows and screamed into it while kicking at the mattress with her bare feet.

* * *

Several hours later, Sarah awoke in small increments, and stared at the window, which was barely lit from some unseen light from outside— the moon, maybe. Much like the day before, when she'd found Jareth asleep at his desk, the window was another depiction of nighttime, only now, it was a beautiful, moon-lit garden.

After several minutes, she rolled onto her other side, closed her eyes, and tried to get back to sleep.

Sarah rolled onto her back, and then rolled onto her right side again.

No good. She was completely wide awake.

She absently kicked the blankets off, slipped out of bed, and padded lightly over to the door. She paused for a moment, bit her lip, and thought that she wanted to go anywhere but to Jareth at the moment. She opened the door and was a little surprised to see the hallway; she'd gotten a little used to her room just taking her directly to where ever she wanted to go. Sarah walked across the hall and gently opened the door directly across from her room.

The room beyond was a small, dorm-style room, with four narrow beds pushed together, and a wash basin under a stained glass window that echoed the one in Sarah's own room. Four goblins lay in bed, but they jerked awake when Sarah opened the door.

"Milady?" the goblin in the bed closest to the door asked. Sarah realized that it was Muzga, the goblin who helped her take off her corsets after dinner.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you," Sarah whispered.

"Milady, is everything alright?" one of the other goblins asked.

"Yes. No. I don't know. Maybe. I couldn't sleep, that's all."

"Why don't you come in for a spell," one of the goblins said. Muzga patted the foot of her bed in an inviting manor; Sarah stepped into the room and perched on the edge of the goblin's bed.

"These are my roommates, Gorga, Myla, and Abis," Muzga introduced them.

"It's very nice to meet you," Sarah said with a small smile.

"As you, milady," the one named Myla said as she slipped out of bed. "I'll just pop down to the kitchen real quick to get some tea." She left the room.

"So, what troubles your mind, milady," Muzga asked Sarah.

"You mean aside from the fact that Jareth tricked me into coming here and continues to emotionally hold my father hostage in order to ensure my continued cooperation?" Sarah asked bitterly.

"I think that it's difficult for you to see past the things that His Majesty did to you five years ago," Abis said. She looked like the oldest out of the goblins present. "And you weren't there to witness what happened after you left."

"What do you mean?" Sarah asked.

"His Majesty completely fell apart," Abis said with a wistful sigh. "It was a difficult time for everybody in the kingdom. His Majesty was really depressed."

As if it was yesterday, Jareth's parting words to Sarah before she whispered that fateful phrase ran through her mind. "Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave." At the time, Sarah had believed that it was just some ploy to get her to give up Toby. But now… now after messages told through gloxinias, Sarah wasn't so sure.

"Well, maybe he wouldn't have been so depressed if he hadn't tried to kidnap my little brother," Sarah snapped. She frowned at the sharp look that the three goblins gave her. "Well, maybe he shouldn't have made it look like he was going to kidnap Toby," she said. "And maybe I might like him a little bit better if he didn't trick me into coming here and continue to emotionally blackmail me about it."

"I don't think that His Majesty necessarily sees it the way that you do," Gorga said softly. "He's Fae, and tricks are second nature to them." Sarah pressed her lips together but didn't say anything.

"Gorga's right," Muzga said. "But he should have thought about that before he went ahead with his plan to bring you back here."

"Wait, what do you mean, 'his plan'?" Sarah asked sharply.

"Well, he said that it was a bit of an accident that your father ended up here, but he rolled with it," Abis said.

"Arg! I knew it! That… that jerk!" Sarah hissed. She jumped to her feet and probably would have stormed from the room had Myla not come back into the room with a full tea tray. "But, if my father hadn't come here, then he probably would have found some other way to trick me into staying." She accepted the cup of tea from Myla, and wrapped her hands around the mug.

"His Majesty isn't all that bad," Abis said. "He really cares for you, and wants you to be happy."

"You'd think that he'd find some better way to please me rather than emotional blackmail and balls."

"Oh, I don't know about this ball," Myla said with a quiet laugh.

"What do you mean?" Muzga asked the other goblin sharply.

"I can't say for certain, because His Majesty's mother does not come here anymore, but if I had to bet, I'd say that His Majesty's mother is in cohorts with His Majesty with this entire thing," Myla said with a sly look.

"I don't… I don't understand," Sarah whispered.

"Myla's saying that she thinks that His Majesty's mother is in on His Majesty's plot to woo you," Abis said with a sigh and a roll of her eyes.

"Well, I don't know why Jareth couldn't just bring me flowers and chocolates and ask me to see a movie," Sarah grumbled under her breath. "All of this deception only makes me trust him less."

"What do you mean, milady? You wouldn't mind it if His Majesty formally asked to court you?" Gorga asked. Sarah was silent for a long time, and just stared absently into her tea.

"No, I guess not," Sarah said softly. "He's not completely unbearable when he's not trying to trick me." But then she thought of how he'd looked at her legs a few hours ago, and felt her blood start to boil again. "But, arg! He's just so completely frustrating sometimes! I just want to strangle him!"

* * *

"Hey, dude, I almost don't want to bring this up since you've been oddly silent about it this past week, but I have to know: what happened with the police report?"

Greg looked over to his roommate with confusion. "Police report?"

"Yeah. About Sarah."

"Why would I file a report with Sarah? It is in my opinion that I cannot get into a girl's pants if I file a report on her."

"Dude, are you serious?" Dustin said. Greg just looked at Dustin blankly for several minutes. "She's been missing for like… two weeks now." A look of complete understanding mixed with horror slowly replaced Greg's confused look.

"Oh my god. How in the world could I have forgotten about Sarah?!" he exclaimed as he jumped to his feet. He ran over to the window and peeked out at the house across the street. The house was completely dark and shut up, but only one of the cars was missing from the drive way. "How could you let me forget about Sarah?" Greg rounded on his roommate.

"I'm sorry, dude! I thought that it was more than a little creepy how you were obsessing over her when she clearly wanted nothing to do with you. I thought that maybe one of the reasons why she'd moved away was because of how overly attached you were to her!"

"Come on, dude, you can't be serious," Greg said as he puffed his chest up. "Girls dig this. And besides, there's no way that Sarah actually moved away. Something obviously happened to her. Something bad."

"But, why did you forget about her?"

"I…" Greg visibly deflated. "I guess that there was a lot on my mind. And it… I don't know. Last week, I was really worried about her, and then… for some reason, it just felt silly to keep asking questions and to think about her like that." He jumped over the couch, grabbed his car keys, and headed for the door. "I've got to go to the police station and see how the search is going for her!" The front door slammed a second later.

Dustin hung his head and sighed deeply. "That poor girl is probably in Manhattan right now, stress-free about never having to be bothered by Greg, and I opened my big mouth and ruined her peace."


	5. Chapter 5

I feel as if I should apologize in advance for the derogatory language in this chapter, as some might find it overly offensive. Greg Cameron's views do not reflect my own; I am simply writing an awful character, and used such language to invoke strong feelings of hate in the readers.

As before, this has not been proof read, so if you spot any grammatical mistakes, please let me know so that I may fix them.

* * *

"Nonono! Don't pull it so tightly!" Muzga groused at the other maid who was helping Sarah get dressed for the ball.

"I'm just doing my job!" the other maid, Puabi, snapped.

"His Majesty specifically ordered for Miss Williams's dresses not to be so tight, and told us to lace the corset up more loose than tight!" Muzga started to tug on the strings to loosen Sarah's corset. Sarah let out a big gust of air and held on tighter to the post of her bed.

"Why doesn't Jareth just magic me into the dress instead of going to all of this trouble?" Sarah asked as Muzga started to fix the corset strings.

"Because His Majesty said that he wanted to be surprised when he sees you for the first time as you walk down the front stairs," Muzga explained.

"This would be so much easier if I could just wear a cocktail dress," Sarah said. "If I'm going to stay here for much longer, I'm going to have a serious talk with Jareth about adopting some Aboveworld fashions down here." But then she had the thought of faceless Fae nobility grinding one another to rave music. "Then again, maybe not," she said quickly as she pushed the weird image out of her mind.

"Arms up," Puabi said as she and Muzga approached Sarah by the bed. Sarah did as she was told, and briefly wondered how they were going to get the cream fabric monstrosity over her head, when both of them were quite literally half her height.

But, they somehow managed it, and then the next couple of minutes were spent tugging the dress into place. Muzga tucked a few strands of hair that had escaped Sarah's fancy updo while they'd dressed her, while Puabi brought in a full-length mirror from god-knows-where. Sarah turned to look at herself, and scowled at what she saw— a slightly more mature version of the scared, drugged 15 year old.

"Jareth has a disturbing sense of humor," Sarah grumbled as she turned away from her reflection.

"What do you mean, milady?" Muzga asked as she presented Sarah with her shoes.

"Jareth is nuttier than squirrel poo if he thinks that this is going to win me over," Sarah said as she yanked on the fabric slippers that matched her dress. "Thank you for helping me to get ready, but I can take it from here," she said politely to the two goblins. They left her room quickly, and Sarah paced around for a few minutes; she tried not to look either at her reflection, or the stained glass, which was a twirling couple on the dance floor. There was little doubt in Sarah's mind about what that meant.

After a moment, she turned from both the mirror and the window and marched out of her room. The hallway opened up onto the front entrance, which Sarah had only seen the night that she first came to Jareth's castle. She started down the stairs, her hand lightly touching the banister.

Jareth stood at the end of the stairs, and looked up at her with a look of complete awe and wonder. Sarah flushed a little at the attention that he was giving her, but then she scowled. "Yeah yeah, very funny," she said once she reached him.

"What is, precious?"

"This," Sarah said, and motioned to indicate her dress.

"You are very beautiful," Jareth said simply. He presented her with a small bouquet of viscarias.

"Please don't tell me that this is some weird confession of your love," Sarah said sourly.

"No, of course not, don't be silly," Jareth said simply. "'Will you dance with me?'"

"What?"

"That's what the viscaria means. 'Will you dance with me?'"

"Oh." Sarah flushed as Jareth pulled one of the small, purple flowers out from the bundle that he'd presented Sarah with and carefully tucked the blossom behind her left ear. Then, he offered her his arm, which she nervously accepted. With a wicked grin from Jareth, the front hall melted away and was replaced by a completely different front hall. This one was much nicer than Jareth's, and it actually looked not only well-kept, but bright and welcoming.

Two sharply dressed footmen hurried forward to greet Sarah and Jareth. "Sir Jareth, your mother has been expecting you," one of them said, and motioned towards a doorway at the end of the hall. A lively waltz and the light sounds of many people talking came from the room.

"Well, my dear?" Jareth asked. Sarah nodded once and they started towards the door, but Jareth stopped just inside the entrance.

"King Jareth, of the Goblin Kingdom, and Lady Sarah Williams," a man announced to the crowd. The room beyond was down a curved flight of stairs, and the doorway from the front hall opened up at the top of them. People looked up when they were announced, and then clapped politely as Sarah and Jareth started down the stairs.

"Jareth…" Sarah muttered. Her fingers dug almost painfully into Jareth's arm. "They don't exactly look happy." And even though the women in the room had bright smiles on their faces, most of them looked rather phony, and some were just downright deranged.

"They are simply jealous that you are my date," Jareth told her simply. She looked away from the menacing glares and looked up at Jareth. He gave her a gentle smile, and then they stopped, because they'd reached the bottom of the stairs.

"Don't leave me," Sarah whispered.

"I would never, precious."

Jareth carefully moved Sarah around the room for about fifteen minutes as he made his rounds greeting everybody. Not once did his hand leave her waist. Under normal circumstances, Sarah would be annoyed at the contact, but when every single women seemed to be trying to kill her with their death glares, she was grateful for the comfort and security of his touch.

"Sarah, might I introduce you to my mother, Amael?" Jareth finally said.

"Sarah. It is a pleasure to finally meet you," the woman said. Jareth looked a lot like her, only the masculine features on Jareth were softer and more rounded on Amael. Her ash-blonde hair was pulled into an overly-elaborate updo, so Sarah couldn't tell if it was feathery like her son's was, but her eyes were the same color, so where ever Jareth had received his unusual eyes, it wasn't from his mother. "Jareth has told me a lot about you."

"It's nice to meet you," Sarah said absently. She thought about what Myla said about how she thought that Amael and Jareth were plotting, but couldn't find it in her to hate the older woman. Especially not without any evidence. Sarah offered Amael a hesitant smile just as the orchestra that was playing on a small stage at the other end of the ballroom finished playing.

Everybody turned towards the band and clapped for a moment before the orchestra launched into another waltz. "Why don't you two go dance? After all, this is a ball!"

Jareth released his hold on Sarah's waist and offered her his hand. "Might I have this dance?" he asked with a coy smile. Sarah hesitated for a second before she accepted his hand.

"It would be a shame for your dance lessons all last week to go to waste," she said as Jareth lead her onto the dance floor. They twirled around for several minutes until the song ended, and then they continued to dance some more.

Somebody tapped on Jareth's shoulder. "Might I cut in?" the man asked Jareth.

"I mind, but I suppose that you'll have to pose the question towards Sarah, not myself," Jareth said coolly.

"You said that I wouldn't have to dance with anybody else," Sarah protested quietly.

"And you don't have to if you don't want to," Jareth replied with a soft laugh.

"No, thank you," Sarah told the man gently but firmly.

"I believe that the lady has made herself clear," Jareth said.

"Come on, Jar," the man said. "You can't just bring a human along to something like this and not expect to share."

"Excuse me?" Sarah gasped.

"I believe that the thing of which you are referring to is named Sarah Williams. Not only is she a being who is highly capable of making her own decisions, but she is also my date," Jareth told the man with a firm scowl on his face.

"What the hell is your problem, dude?" Sarah hissed at the man. "Do you need some sort of written letter explaining why I don't even want to be in the same room as you anymore?"

"Okay, Sarah, I think it's time that we leave now…" Jareth whispered close to her ear as he tugged her arm away. With one last loathing-filled glare, Sarah turned around and allowed Jareth to lead her over to the large punch fountain.

"I'm not anybody's property," Sarah hissed and she shook Jareth's arm off.

"I never said that you were, Sarah," Jareth said with a look that she couldn't read on his face. "Lord Adriel was completely out of line to treat you like that while you were standing right there."

Sarah turned so that her back was to the room. "This was a bad idea to come here. All of the ladies have been giving me the stink eye since we walked in. And I don't even want to think about what's going on in the minds of the men." Jareth silently handed her a cup of punch. She took a sip, and then half-turned her head to look at Jareth. "Well, at least your mother is… nice."

"You don't have to sugar-coat things with me, Sarah," Jareth said with a smirk. "I know perfectly well what kind of person that my mother is."

"No, really. I think that she's the only woman here who isn't trying to murder me with her eyes just because you brought me here."

"I don't think that all of the women here are unattached," Jareth said after a moment.

"You're kidding, right?" Sarah asked as she spun around to fully face him. "You said it yourself that you believe that this event is for your mother to play matchmaker with you."

"I did say that, but she wouldn't be very good at coyly playing me if she only invited unattached women and nobody else. She'd have to invite men, as well as attached couples."

"Oh. Right." Sarah took another small sip of punch.

"Milady, would you care to dance?" a man asked Sarah.

"You are very kind, but no thank you," she said softly. The man walked away. "Well, at least I'm glad to see that not every man here has no manners."

"Do you think the same of me, precious?" Jareth asked with a slight laugh.

"It would be an insult of your mother to say that you were raised in a barn, so instead I shall say that you spend too much time around your subjects for your own good. Speaking of which… I am rather curious as to how you went from all of this to being the king of the goblins. In that book about the Labyrinth, you were already the king."

"It is a very long story."

"Give me the book-jacket version."

"My father was the high king of the Fae. We all got to rule whatever kingdoms that we wanted… except that since I was the youngest, there weren't any good kingdoms left. It was either become the Goblin King, or the Troll King."

"But, it was you who brought the Fae to the Underground."

"No, I was just the first and I only brought my kingdom. After my siblings saw what I'd done, they decided to move their kingdoms until all of the Fae were Underground, too."

"You're a trend-setter, Jareth," Sarah said with a teasing smirk.

"I'd hardly call not wanting humans to paw all over my expensive items in some half-assed attempt to find a missing baby to be starting a trend," Jareth scoffed, but he had a small smile on his face, nonetheless.

"Jareth, darling, you and Sarah are not dancing," Amael said as she walked over to them. Her dress covered her feet, and with the exceptionally graceful way that she walked, she appeared to be just gliding over the surface of the marble floor.

"No, we are not. Thank you for that update, mother," Jareth said coolly.

"Is there some reason why you are not?"

"Lord Adriel," Jareth said, as if that somehow answered everything.

"Ah," Amael said with a slight nod of her head; clearly, it did answer everything. "Is he drunk again? I told my guards to keep a close eye on the fountain in case anybody got any funny ideas to spike the punch."

"I do believe that he gained his rude attitude towards humans and womenfolk in general from his father, not from alcohol," Jareth said with a scowl. Amael stepped closer to her son and reached a perfectly manicured hand up to his face. "Mother, what are you…" Jareth bent backwards to avoid his mother's touch. "What are you doing?"

"I'm fixing your eyebrow; it's all funny."

"My eyebrows are fine, mother."

"No, they are not! Sarah, would you tell my ornery son that his eyebrow is out of place?"

"I don't… I don't see anything," Sarah said before she bit down hard on her lip to stop herself from laughing out loud.

"You roguish, onion-eyed bum-bailey!" somebody roughly shouted over the gentle sounds of the orchestra and people talking.

"Oh no. It looks like Lord Rielaph got into the alcohol," Amael said with a sigh. "I'd better take care of this." She left Jareth and Sarah, and the crowd quickly parted to let her pass before everybody moved back to where they had been.

Sarah let out a wistful sigh as she watched Amael's progress to the other side of the room where two gentlemen where about to have a duel in the middle of the ball. "What is it, precious?"

"It's nothing…" Sarah said with a small sigh. She took another sip of her punch.

"No, it's not. What is it?"

"I just really miss my family," Sarah said after a moment. "I wish my dad was here. Or that I could see him." Jareth silently offered Sarah his hand; she gave him a questioning look but accepted it without comment. He lead her around the edges of the ball room so that they could avoid the dancers who had once again started back up again, and then lead her out onto a patio. But Jareth didn't stop once they were outside, and lead Sarah down some stone steps to the garden, where the light from the ball was faint, and they could no longer hear the orchestra or the people. "Where are we going?"

"Here," Jareth said. He stopped, and turned Sarah around by her shoulders so that her back was to him.

"What are you-" Sarah started as she half-turned back towards Jareth. She jumped a little as his arms went around her from behind, and then became distracted as Jareth produced a crystal.

"You have to focus on what you want to see," Jareth whispered. His hot breath against Sarah's ear sent a shiver down her spine.

Sarah stared closer at the crystal as colors and shapes started to make sense. "It's… It's Irene. My step-mom," Sarah whispered. "But… I don't…" She frowned as more of the image came into focus. "Oh my gosh. It's my father. Why is he in a hospital bed?" Sarah spun around in Jareth's arms so that she faced him. "Jareth, please. You have to send me back. My dad could be really sick or seriously hurt."

Jareth looked into Sarah's tear-filled eyes. "Yes, alright," he said unevenly. "I… I'll go with you." He gripped Sarah's arms tighter, and she slid her eyes closed.

"Paging Dr. Lytton." The smell of antiseptic and sickness filled Sarah's nose. She opened her eyes to a waiting room of a hospital. Sarah gave Jareth a questioning, searching gaze.

"Go," he said sternly as he released his hold on her. "Go be with your family." He half-turned from her. Sarah gave the Goblin King one last, searching look before she gathered up her skirts and hurried over to the nurse's station.

"I'm looking for my father, Robert Williams," Sarah asked the nurse. When the nurse told her what room that he was in, she didn't hesitate and ran down the hall in search of the room.

When she burst into the room, Irene looked up from her vigil over her husband's bed. "Sarah!" she exclaimed and jumped to her feet. Sarah paused on the thresh-hold of the door, and just stared blankly at her father, who looked even worse than he had in the crystal.

"What… What happened?" Sarah whispered. Her hands were shaking badly, and she clenched them tightly to hide it from her step-mother.

"He had a massive heart attack," Irene whispered. She took a hesitant step towards the younger woman before Sarah closed the distance in a few strides and tightly wrapped her arms around Irene. "I was so worried that I'd never see you again," Irene whispered as she pressed her face into her step-daughter's hair.

"Me, too."

"What happened?" Irene whispered as she held Sarah at arms length away from her. "What about…?"

"He… He brought me here after I saw daddy lying in a hospital bed," Sarah whispered. She reached up and brushed the tears that had fallen from her eyes away before she turned away from Irene and walked closer to her father's bedside. She looked down at her prone, pale, and sickly-looking father for a moment before she turned her attention back to Irene. "What happened?"

"You'd better sit down," Irene whispered, and went around the bed to bring the other plastic visitor's chair around. Sarah sat in the chair that Irene had been sitting in, and Irene put the other chair next to her step-daughter, and gently took Sarah's hand. "Things went from bad to worse after you left. You remember Greg Cameron, right?"

"The guy who lives across the street from us?" Sarah asked with an air of confusion. "Yeah, I remember him. It's hard to forget about a guy who obsessively asked me out every single Friday since we moved into that house."

"Well, at first, after you'd left, he just started to come around and ask where you where. And even though we don't have any proof, we think that he filed a missing persons report on you."

"Oh my gosh," Sarah gasped with horror. "Why would he do something like that?"

"We don't have any proof, so it's hard to say for sure either way. Well, after the first time that the police came around in search of you, Robert went out a few hours later, and when he came back, he said that he spoke to the man who had you, and Robert told me that the man promised that he would fix things. Robert didn't elaborate on what that meant, though, but since Greg nor the police officers came back in search of you, we both tried not to look a gift horse in the mouth." Sarah frowned— she'd have to ask Jareth about that later. "And things were fine, for about a week or so. And then the police came back yesterday and demanded that if we didn't tell them where you were right away, then they'd arrest us. That's when your father had his heart attack."

"The stress of everything must have finally caught up with him," Sarah whispered. She reached out and gently grabbed her father's hand.

"The doctors say that he's lucky to be alive. He was responding well to the treatment earlier today, but he's very tired now," Irene said. "What happened to you? Why are you dressed like that?"

"It's a long story."

"I've got time."

"Where's Toby?"

"I left him with Mrs. Brinkerhoff so that I could come to the hospital to be with your father."

"I can go and get him?" Sarah offered.

"What about your father?"

"I can't…" Sarah sniffled loudly. "I don't think that I can stand to see him in this state. If he wakes up and asks for me, I'll come back with Toby." She stood abruptly and then quickly left the room. She didn't even think about how she was even going to get back home— she didn't have any money, and Irene hadn't offered for her to take her car, which was probably parked outside somewhere.

She was barely aware of where she was going, because her eyes were so clouded with tears. "Sarah?" she heard Jareth ask somewhere in front of her. He grabbed the sobbing woman before she accidentally injured herself in her state of duress, and she fell against him. Sarah clutched tightly at Jareth's shirt and he gently stroked her hair while murmuring sweet words of nothing.

After several minutes of standing like this, Sarah finally started to calm down a little. She gave a couple of cry hic-ups before she looked up at Jareth. "I have to go get Toby," she told him softly. "From the neighbor."

"Yes, of course," Jareth whispered. He continued to stroke her hair.

"Will you take me there?"

"I don't know where it is."

"You brought me to the hospital," Sarah protested.

"Because I saw it in the crystal. You'll have to show me." He held up another crystal between the two of them, and Sarah focused on Toby this time.

For a moment, Sarah was worried that the crystal wouldn't show her her half-brother, but then the picture came into focus— Toby lying on the semi-familiar guest bed of their elderly neighbor.

"We'll give Mrs. Brinkerhoff a heart attack if we just appear in her living room," Sarah whispered as she looked up at Jareth. He gave a slow nod, and the hospital melted away to the quiet suburb that Sarah had called home for the past year or so. Four houses down from the grassy, damp lawn that they stood on was her own home, dark and depressing looking with the occupants presently gone. Jareth looked over towards where Sarah was looking, and then looked down at the woman he was still holding on to.

"I'll just give you your privacy…" Jareth whispered, and then he stepped away from her. Sarah didn't let go of him until only their finger tips touched. Then, Jareth vanished. Sarah shook her head before she walked up to the front door of the house she stood in front of and rang the bell.

* * *

"Dude! Dude!"

"Dude! It's fucking 2 AM!" Greg complained as Dustin burst into his bedroom.

"Forget that! Sarah's back!"

"What?" Greg hissed as he sat up right in bed. He quickly pushed his blankets out of the way and jumped out of bed. "When? Did you see her?"

"I wasn't so sure at first, but I was only looking over at the house because there were a lot of lights on considering how late that it is. But I saw her in the front window, and it's definitely her," Dustin explained in a rush as he followed Greg to the living room. Greg didn't even stop at the window to look out it, and started for the door. "Dude, are you insane?"

"What?" Greg asked sourly with his hand on the door knob.

"Well, for starters, you're not even dressed, and it's also 2 AM," Dustin said blankly. Greg looked down at the boxers that he wore.

"Right. Well, I do suppose that I shouldn't scare her off by going over there in nothing but my underwear," Greg said. He dashed back into his room, and came out a minutes later dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. He didn't wait to find some shoes and just ran out the door.

The house across the street was dark, but then again, all of the houses that Greg could see were dark as well. He barely registered the wet grass under his feet as he sprinted across the lawn and then proceeded to both pound on the door and ring the bell. A second later, the door opened to a tall, blond man that Greg did not know, who was dressed simply in sweatpants and a t-shirt.

"What in the world do you want?" the man hissed at him. "Sarah and Toby have finally gone to sleep, and you come over here and proceed to make the most ungodly racket."

"Who are you?" Greg asked, a little taken aback by the strangely beautiful man before him.

"Who am I? Who are you? You show up at the door unannounced, not only at an ungodly hour, but also in the midst of an extreme family crisis." The man sneered at Greg. "Be gone with you." And then the door slammed in Greg's face.

Sputtering and more than a little confused as to what had just happened, Greg started to once again pound on the door and ring the bell. The man opened the door again.

"Is it not enough to tell somebody of your ilk to leave anymore?" the man said with a deep-set scowl.

"No! I want to see Sarah!" Greg insisted.

"She is exceptionally distraught over the condition of her father and overly exhausted," the man said coldly. "If you do not leave the Williams's residence, I shall be forced to call the lawmen to escort you from the premises."

"I'll leave as soon as I see that Sarah's okay!"

"If I awake her, then the first thing that I'll tell her will be to contact the lawmen in order to have you removed," the man said. Then, the door slammed in Greg's face a second time. Greg let out a low growl as he spun around on his heel and marched back across the street. He knew that to knock on the door would only result in the strange man calling the police.

"And just who the hell does that fucker thing he is?" Greg muttered under his breath as he walked back inside his own home. "'I shall be forced to call the lawmen to escort you from the premises.' Who the fuck talks like that?"

* * *

Sarah put the receiver of the phone back onto the cradle, and then half-turned to face Jareth. "It was Irene," she whispered as she hugged her arms to herself. "Dad's awake, and he's asking for me." Sarah paused and bit her lip. "You don't have to stay here, you know."

"But who's going to watch over Toby while you're visiting with your father in the hospital?" Jareth asked. Sarah spun around to face him fully and gave him an annoyed glare. "If I did not harm him five years ago, why would I harm him now? It would not be in my best interest to do so, precious, and you know that."

Sarah stood and just glared at the Goblin King. "Why are you even here, Jareth? Don't you have a kingdom to run?"

"It will be alright for a few days," Jareth reassured her.

Sarah didn't say anything and brushed past Jareth on her way out of her parent's bedroom. "I'm still going to take Toby over to Mrs. Brinkerhoff's house. You can stay here or you can come to the hospital with me. But I don't want you to be alone with Toby."

"I will take you back to the hospital, then."

"I'm perfectly capable of taking myself, Jareth," Sarah said. She paused just outside of the room that she shared with Toby to pointedly roll her eyes at Jareth before she went inside.

A few minutes later, she came out with a sloppily dressed Toby, who was rubbing at his eyes sleepily. "But why do I have to stay with Mrs. Brinkerhoff? Why can't I go and see dad?"

"I think that it would be too scary for you, sweetie," Sarah told him gently. "Dad is really sick, and he doesn't want you to see him like that."

"Oh, like when I got the chicken pox and couldn't go to school?"

"…Yes, like that," Sarah said after a brief pause.

Toby paused in the threshold to the living room, and stared open-mouthed at Jareth. "You're him!" he whispered.

"I think that you need to leave now," Sarah told Jareth with a frown.

"I will do no such thing," Jareth said sharply.

"I remember him singing to me," Toby eagerly told his sister. "Will you sing to me again?"

"What? When was this?" Sarah asked.

"I told you that I never harmed your brother. As such, I had no desire to be around a screaming child, so my goblins and I simply… entertained Toby while you were running the labyrinth."

"Let's go, Toby. Dad's waiting for me at the hospital, and Mrs. Brinkerhoff will probably have breakfast for you," Sarah said so quickly, it lead Jareth to believe that she was intentionally avoiding the subject— both with herself, and with her brother.

"Sarah, there's something urgent that I have to tell you," Jareth said as they walked across Mrs. Brinkerhoff's lawn after dropping Toby off with the elderly woman.

"I don't really want to hear your confessions of love right now, Jareth," Sarah snapped at him as she got into her car.

"No. It's about Greg," Jareth said as he stopped Sarah from closing the driver's door by holding onto the frame. She looked up at him with confusion.

"How do you know about Greg?"

"Aside from listening in to your conversation with your step-mother, your father also briefly mentioned him."

"Right, right. We're going to have a conversation about what you did to both Greg and the officers, and also about you eavesdropping on private conversations," Sarah said. "But not right now. What about Greg?"

"He came to the door last night. After you'd finally gone to bed."

"It was well after 1 by the time that I was in bed. When did he come by?"

"I believe that it was around 2," Jareth said. "He both knocked on the door and rang the bell until I came to answer it. He would have woken both of you up if I hadn't put up a sound barrier around your room when you went to bed."

"What did he want?"

"He insisted on seeing you. I told him that you were asleep and shut the door in his face, and he started to knock and ring the bell again and demanded that he see you because he wanted to know that you were alright."

"But at 2 AM?" Sarah asked. She twisted around in her seat and looked down the block at Greg's house. "Get in."

"Sarah, this is not a safe nor reliable-" Jareth started.

"Get into the stupid car or I'll leave without you!" Sarah screamed. Jareth gave her a worried look before he released the door frame, walked around the front of the car, and slid into the passenger's seat.

* * *

Greg had watched silently as Sarah had piled her brother and the strange man into her father's car and then they drove down to the elderly widow's house a few blocks away. After they'd deposited Toby, Sarah got back into the car, but the man stood and talked to Sarah for a moment before he got into the car and they drove off.

And he hadn't moved from the front window sense. It wasn't enough for him to see that Sarah was alright, but to talk to her. He didn't like the way that the strange guy had treated him earlier that morning, and felt certain that the man was holding Sarah hostage.

"Dude, you are being beyond crazy," Dustin said as he stood in the doorway from the living room to the kitchen with a bowl of cereal.

"No, I am not! Sarah did not just vanish for two weeks for no reason! And now she just shows up with some… some fairy fagot?! I mean, seriously! The guy was wearing make up!"

"You have gone completely bat-shit, dude. I won't be a part of this anymore. I'm moving out."

"Wait, what?" Greg turned his attention fully to Dustin. "You can't move!"

"I can, and I will! You want to know where Sarah was these past two weeks? She was probably avoiding you, because you won't stop harassing her! Dude, look at yourself! You're hissing about some guy who slammed a door in your face because you fucking knocked on the door at 2 in the morning! You don't even know who that guy is, or why he's there! For all you know, he's… he's her brother or an uncle or something!"

Greg turned his attention back to the window as Robert's car pulled into the drive way across the street. The man got from the passenger's side, rushed over to the driver's side, and a second later, pulled Sarah out from the driver's seat. Greg watched, his blood boiling, as Sarah leaned against the strange man in an overly familiar way. As if her familiarity with the man wasn't enough, the man put his arm around Sarah's waist in a way that indicated that he was not related to her.

Greg grabbed the first thing that he saw and stormed out from the house. "Hey, Sarah!" he yelled as loud as he could. The two of them, who had been about to go inside their house, paused, and then slowly turned around to face Greg as he ran across the street to them. "Where the hell have you been?"

"Um, that's not really any of your business, Gregory," Sarah said with a sneer. She didn't leave the man's side, and Greg noted that the man also moved to put himself between Sarah and Greg.

"You!" Greg hissed at Jareth. "You did something to her! Didn't you?" Sarah's eyes went wide for a moment, before she schooled her features.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she said.

"Come over here and fight me, you pansy-assed fagot!" Greg roared as he waved the crow-bar that he'd grabbed in the air.

"What is the matter with you?" Sarah hissed.

"I have no desire to fight with you," Jareth said at the same time that Sarah spoke. Greg grit his teeth at the overly eloquent way that the man spoke. He gripped the crow-bar tighter in his hand, and then lunged at Jareth.

"JARETH!" Sarah screamed loudly as the metal connected with the Goblin King's head, and he crumpled to the ground.


	6. Chapter 6

I think I ran out of steam halfway through this. I'm no good with endings.

As with the previous chapters, this has not been proof read, so... blah-blah-blah. You know the drill.

* * *

"Jareth!" Sarah whimpered as she sunk onto her knees by the side of the prone figure of the Goblin King.

"What are you doing?" Greg hissed at her as he marched over to her. "I saved you from your captor!" He grabbed her arm and painfully hauled her to her feet.

"Don't fucking touch me!" Sarah screamed. "You just beat my boyfriend over the head with a crow-bar! What the fuck is wrong with you!" She wrenched her arm out from Greg's grip, yanked the crow-bar from his hand. "I swear to god, I will beat you with this until you are nothing but a bloody smear on the pavement."

"But… I saved-" Greg broke off when Sarah punched him in the face. His head snapped back, and he winced in pain— he thought that his nose might be broken.

"If I ever so much as see you again, getting a punch will seem like a trip to Disneyworld in comparison," Sarah hissed.

"Du are crazy," Greg whispered. He gave Sarah a wide-eyed look before he turned tail and ran back to his house across the street. Sarah dropped the crow-bar with a loud clatter onto the ground, and then hurried back over to Jareth's side. He hadn't moved at all during her encounter with Greg.

There was quite a gash on his forehead from where the crow-bar had connected, and it was bleeding like crazy. "Jareth, Jareth. Please. Wake up. Please," Sarah whispered as she tried to wipe the blood away with the hem of her t-shirt in order to see the damage done. "Oh god, oh god. Please wake up. Please."

Her efforts stalled as she broke into tears. She bent over his prone figure and started to cry freely. The tears that had been burning in her eyes since she'd gotten to the hospital with Jareth a few hours earlier broke free.

"Please don't leave me," she whispered as the tears fell from her eyes and splashed onto Jareth's cheek. "Please. I… I love you."

Jareth let out a low groan of pain, and his eyes fluttered open for a brief second.

"Oh my god, Jareth," Sarah whispered. Her hands fluttered uselessly above him, unsure of what she should do.

"Say it again," Jareth croaked.

"What?"

"Say it again, Sarah."

"I… I don't…" Sarah whispered helplessly. Jareth's mismatched eyes opened and looked up at Sarah. "I… I didn't know if you were honestly just trying to mess with me or not, but it was hard not to fall for you. You've been on my mind almost every day for the past five years. Every boy that I met, I seemed to compare them to you, even if I didn't intend to. It was hard for me to…" Jareth raised his hand and Sarah grasped it.

"Not that, precious," Jareth said with a soft smirk, but it was easy to tell how much pain that he was in.

"I love you, you giant jerk! I was really afraid that that creep had seriously hurt you!"

"It was iron," Jareth whispered. "I'm currently in a lot of pain."

"What do I do?" Sarah whispered as she rubbed at her eye with the sleeve of her shirt, since her hands were all bloody.

"You could kiss me?" Jareth asked. Sarah searched his face for the tell-tale smirk, the twinkle of his eye, to let her know that he was joking, but couldn't find any indication that he was.

Jareth slowly ran his thumb over Sarah's knuckles. She absently brushed the hair out of his eyes. Then, she leaned over and gently pressed her lips to the Goblin King's. A jolt of electricity passed through both of them at the simple contact. It wasn't like how it was often described in romance novels, and although the kiss was throughly enjoyable, the feeling was exceptionally bizarre.

Sarah jerked back a second later, and rubbed the hand that wasn't holding Jareth's across her lips in order to make them stop tingling. "Ow, what was that?" she asked.

"I'm sorry, Sarah. I stole a bit of your magic… since you're not using it or anything," Jareth said. He had a cocky grin on his face. "I'm just sorry that we had to have our first kiss under such duress."

"And you couldn't have taken my magic away under any other circumstances?" Sarah asked.

"Yes, but where's the fun in that?"

"You idiot!" Sarah said with a slight laugh. "If Greg hadn't already proved himself to be such a creep before, I would have sworn that you'd planned this entire thing."

"I don't think that I would have chosen to be knocked unconscious and suffer from iron poisoning. It is rather embracing to be flat on my back in your front yard."

"I'm not certain that I could carry you inside," Sarah whispered as she ran her hand through Jareth's hair.

"Kiss me again, precious, only this time, don't pull away," Jareth said, his voice low. Sarah leaned over and kissed him again. Although she jumped a little at the electric shock that ran through them at the contact, she didn't pull away. Jareth lightly nipped at her lower lip, and then ran his tongue almost lazily along where he'd just bitten. Sarah let out a contented sigh, and slightly parted her lips.

A moment later, she realized that she was no longer kneeling on cement, but rather, on something soft, and that it had grown much darker. She opened her eyes and pulled away from Jareth when she realized that they were in what looked like a room in Jareth's castle. Jareth was lying sideways on a massive four-poster that was decorated much in the same way that Sarah's own room in the castle was, and Sarah was still kneeling next to him.

"I thought that it might be best to use what little magic that you had to transport us back to my kingdom, where I can get help from healers who know how to deal with this sort of thing," Jareth explained as he looked up at Sarah.

"R-right," Sarah stammered. She quickly climbed off the bed and ran for the door. Jareth closed his eyes as the last bit of his magic faded from him, which had been the only thing keeping him awake after Sarah had cried on him.

* * *

Jareth awoke some time later to somebody gently running their fingers through his hair. There was a bandage wrapped tightly around his forehead, and he felt exceptionally groggy and dizzy.

"Jareth?" Sarah's gentle voice asked from above him. She was sitting next to his bed in a chair, and was running her fingers through his hair absently as she read from a novel. Jareth's head hurt when he tried to focus on the title, so he stopped trying to do so. "How do you feel? Should I go get the healer?"

"No. Please don't leave me," Jareth whispered, his voice hoarse.

"I won't leave you so long as you can look me in the eye and honestly tell me that you're not in any pain," Sarah said.

"It's not as bad as it was earlier. I'm mostly just dizzy. And tired."

"You should get some rest. The healer was assertive that you shouldn't try to over-exert yourself."

"Alright," Jareth agreed with a slight sigh. He closed his eyes, and was asleep again in minutes.

* * *

When Jareth awoke some time later, he felt much better, although still a little bit groggy. "Good morning, Jareth," said a soothing voice to his left. He looked over— his mother was sitting in the same chair that Sarah had occupied earlier. Much like Sarah, Amael was also reading a book.

"Mother?" Jareth asked with an air of confusion. "When did you get here?"

"A little bit after you came back," Amael replied. "Sarah wrote to me, said it was urgent."

"Sarah? Where is she?" Jareth asked. Amael simply pointed with her book to the other side of Jareth. He turned his head, and saw that she was curled up on top of the blankets on the bed next to him.

"I don't think that she'd gotten any sleep since you were injured. She told me that she didn't want to leave your side, because she was worried that if you woke up and that she wasn't there, that you'd panic and injure yourself further." Jareth turned his attention back to his mother. "We settled for a compromise." Amael frowned at her youngest son. "I know that you've been pining away for her since-"

"Mother," Jareth groaned.

"No, you listen to me, Jareth. You might be the Goblin King, but I raised you and your siblings, so I think that I know a thing or two about relationships by now. You're my youngest, my baby, and I want nothing more than to see you happy," Amael said sharply, her voice low so that she wouldn't wake Sarah. "That being said, I can't exactly say that I approve of how you've tricked Sarah. Yes," Amael said when Jareth opened his mouth to protest. "Sarah told me everything. I was there for you during the aftermath of her beating the Labyrinth, even though you wouldn't tell me what had you so upset. But after I got the final pieces of the puzzle from Sarah, everything makes sense."

"I didn't mean to fall in love with her," Jareth whispered as he turned his attention to the sleeping woman next to him. "But she's just so kind, head-strong…"

"It doesn't exactly take a Fae to figure out why you fell for her, honey," Amael said gently. "Ever since you first took your kingdom Underground, you haven't exactly been the most pleasant person to be around. I think that when Sarah ran your Labyrinth, you found the spark that you've been missing. If you'll excuse my language for a moment, you found somebody who not only wouldn't take your shit, but also stood up to you." Amael smiled fondly at her son. "I came here, completely prepared to tell you to let the poor girl go home. But after seeing how she acted around you when you were injured, I knew. Now then, how do you feel?"

"Like I've been lying in this bed for about a week now. I'm tired of having iron poisoning, but my head feels much better."

"The healers say that it's almost healed, although it'll be a while before you're running at full speed again. Might I suggest not pissing off humans in the future?" Amael asked with a slight laugh.

"That guy was completely mad," Jareth insisted. "I do hope that Sarah told you about him."

"She did," Amael said simply as Sarah stirred next to Jareth. "I'll leave you two alone." Amael vanished. Jareth turned his attention to Sarah, who was just starting to wake up.

"Good morning," Jareth said smoothly. He reached over to her and gently ran his fingers through her hair, which was slightly greasy from a lack of washing.

"I feel like I should still be angry at you for being there when I woke up," Sarah murmured. "But then I remembered that I fell asleep in your bed."

"If it was up to me, you'd never leave my bed," Jareth said with a cocky smile.

"Well, you must be feeling better if you're making lewd jokes," Sarah said as she pushed herself up.

"Why did you invite my mother here?"

"I didn't invite her per-say," Sarah said carefully. "I simply wrote her a note that you'd been badly injured, and told the goblins that it was urgent. And then she showed up. I mean, if it was me, I'd want my mom to know. …Well, Irene would show up, but my own mother probably wouldn't even get the message until a month later." Sarah looked sad for a moment before she pressed on. "And when she showed up, who was I to tell her to leave?"

"How about something to eat then? What time is it?" Jareth asked. He frowned a little when he couldn't even manage to squeeze a single drop of magic out of himself, let alone conjure up a clock.

"I don't know. I'll go ask somebody to bring us some food and ask them what time it is." Sarah pushed herself out of bed and walked calmly over to the door. Jareth watched her go, watched the way that the muscles moved under her blue denim pants. Sarah opened the door and he heard her briefly talking to somebody outside his room, and then she shut the door and walked back over to him. She sat in the chair that his mother had vacated moments earlier, and picked up the book that Amael had put down on the night stand. "It's a bit after 8 AM," Sarah told him as she absently flipped through the book. She didn't seem overly interested in finding her spot, but rather, the action spoke of hands that needed to be doing something, anything.

After a moment of awkward silence that seemed to stretch on and on, somebody knocked on the door. "Enter," Jareth commanded, and two goblins came into the room with trays of food. They quickly delivered the food to Jareth and Sarah, and then left the room.

"It's not like I didn't date after I ran the Labyrinth," Sarah started slowly as soon as the door had closed behind the two goblins. "But, I always somehow managed to find something wrong with them. My friends said that I was being too picky, and that they were perfectly acceptable guys. But, I just never really liked any of them all that much. I really tried to like them, honestly. They were nice enough guys. And when I was in college, I told myself that if I stayed in the relationship, that my feelings would change. That if I had sex with them, that my feelings would change. But… I…"

"You said that you'd been holding all other guys up to the impossible standard that is myself," Jareth said with a cocky grin.

"I didn't even really realize it until after I'd said it," Sarah whispered. "But I did a lot of thinking after we came back. And I talked about it with Amael. Even though we really only had a couple of face-to-face encounters while I was here five years ago, I think that you really made an impression on me. Subconsciously, at least. And it's not like there was really anything wrong with any of those men that I dated. But I was just waiting for something, even if I didn't know what it was at the time." She licked her lips, and Jareth watched the movement carefully.

"Have you figured out what you want yet? Aside from the impossible standards lying in front of you, that is."

"I… It's hard to put it into words," Sarah said hesitantly.

"Try."

"W-when I was with other men, I would sometimes think of how… completely juvenile that they were."

"They were boys, not men," Jareth interrupted.

"Yes, exactly. I mean, with Greg, the first time that I met him it was the day that we moved into the house. And I was going back to the moving truck to get something else to take inside, and he just walked up to me. Introduced himself. Said he lived in the house directly across from ours. Then, without hesitation from his introduction, he asked if I wanted to grab a bite to eat with him sometime, maybe catch a movie. The only thing that we knew about one another were each other's names and where we lived. And just like that… he asked me out."

"Forgive me if I'm wrong, but is not the idea of dating to get to know one another?" Jareth asked slowly.

"Yes, but who accepts a date from somebody who is quite literally a complete stranger?"

"What you were looking for was somebody who would woo you," Jareth said, his voice low. "Somebody who would offer to show you your dreams, who would offer to move the stars for you." With that, Sarah burst into tears. "Precious?" Jareth asked. He put his breakfast tray to the side and half-got out of bed to get closer to the crying woman.

"I'm sorry," Sarah whispered as she rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her hand. "It's just, when Greg hit you, and you were lying on the ground, I couldn't help but think to myself that I was really worried about you. You, of all people! You'd kidnapped Toby, forced me to run your stupid Labyrinth in order to get him back, and then you threatened to kidnap my dad, and ended up taking me hostage instead! And when you were lying, unmoving, on the ground, instead of thinking about the horrible man who'd drugged me, I thought that I would be really sad if you…" Sarah swallowed hard. "If anything happened to you."

Jareth wordlessly grabbed the tray that Sarah had balanced across her lap, put it on the nightstand, and then pulled Sarah closer to him. She curled up on his lap, tucked her head under his chin, and tightly clutched at his shirt as a fresh wave of tears hit her.

After a while, Sarah calmed down and pulled away from Jareth to wipe her nose off on her sleeve. "Sorry," Sarah whispered as she finally looked up at Jareth.

"Precious, you have nothing to be sorry for." He gently pressed his lips to her forehead.

"You'd think that I would have gotten over the need to cry since you're better now, but…"

"Did it occur to you that maybe you're crying for a different reason?"

"What do you mean?" Sarah asked carefully.

"Maybe you're upset with the realization that you wasted five years fooling around with boys when you could have been with a king?"

"S-shut up," Sarah said with a slight laugh. "And I was only fifteen when I ran the Labyrinth. Even if I did think for a second that you were serous about what you offered me, I wasn't emotionally ready for that kind of a relationship." She started to get up from Jareth's lap, but he held her fast.

"And where exactly do you think that you're going? I've been scheming to get you into this position for over five years now, so why do you think that I'm just going to let you leave now where I've got you right where I want you?"

"Jareth, I haven't bathed since before the ball. And that was over two days ago," Sarah said dryly. Jareth paused for a moment, and Sarah tried again to get up.

"I find that I don't particularly care, precious," Jareth whispered as he pushed Sarah onto her back; he knelt over her, pinned her wrists to the bed with one hand, and gave her a devious smile. "Shoot," he said a moment later as he released her to pick up the glass of orange juice that had tipped over with the abrupt movement of the mattress.

Sarah took his distraction, rolled off the bed, and gathered her breakfast tray. "Well, since you're obviously feeling better, I no longer have any obligation to sit by your bedside any longer." She marched towards the door and quickly left the room.

Jareth shook his head and chuckled slightly as he stood with the half-empty cup of juice in his hand. He had overcome one massive obstacle with Sarah, but now it seemed as though another one had taken its place.

* * *

Jareth later found Sarah curled up on her favorite reading chair in the library, reading the same book she'd had earlier. Her hair was slightly damp, and she'd changed her clothes as well. "Good afternoon, precious," Jareth said as he presented her with a red rose.

"Hi," she said hesitantly. She first looked up at him, then down to the flower. "Is your magic back?"

"No, not yet," Jareth said with a frown. "The healers said that it should come back hopefully within 24 hours."

"Good, because I was thinking that Greg would probably like to be crowned a prince."

"What are you thinking, my dear?" Jareth asked her sharply.

"Oh, you know, the thing that Hoggle told me about your little threat to crown him the Prince of Eternal Stench," Sarah said with a quiet giggle.

"I don't think that prince is good enough for him, though," Jareth said with all seriousness. "He should be crowned the Holy Emperor."

"I think that it's a title that's befitting Greg's massive ego," Sarah said. "But I wonder how anybody will ever be able to find a crown that's big enough for his massive head?"

"Why don't you come and read to me, precious?"

"Alright, but we never did pick out another book to start reading after we finished 'The Mud Children'."

"You can just read to me from the book that you're reading right now," Jareth said with an absent air and dismissive wave of his hand. Sarah looked contemplatively at the book in her hands.

"I honestly haven't really been reading it. I don't think that I could tell you what's been going on at all," she said after a moment of hesitation.

"Then we'll both be equally lost."

"Can you read it to me?" Sarah asked with a sly glint in her eye.

"Of course," Jareth said as he accepted the book and pressed the rose into Sarah's hand at the same time. "Come over to the sofa over here, though." Sarah got up and followed Jareth over to the mentioned sofa, where she sat down and put her feet in his lap.

"What? You put your head in my lap all the time," Sarah said sweetly. Jareth didn't say anything, just opened the book to the marked page, and read the page over silently. He absently flipped the page, and then the next.

"This is… really graphic," Jareth said with a slight laugh. "I thought that you didn't enjoy reading these types of books."

"I don't," Sarah said with a hint of venom in her voice. "I keep randomly grabbing books off the shelf in here, and they're all romance."

"Why don't you put this back and pick something else then?" Jareth said as he handed the book back to Sarah. "Focus on what you want to read other than just something to read." Sarah got up and went over to the nearest shelf, where she put the book down before she grabbed something else and came back.

"Beauty and the Beast," she whispered. "It's oddly fitting isn't it?"

"What do you mean? The old human fairy tale?"

"The cold-hearted prince tucked the beautiful heroine into his castle after her father plucked a single flower from the prince's garden. You seriously can't tell me that you weren't inspired by the story."

"Maybe a little," Jareth said with a mischievious glint in his eye. "But I'm also old enough that maybe I wasn't inspired by the story."

"If my mythology classes were any indication, the original Beauty and the Beast story originated from a much older, Greek story called Cupid and Psyche."

"Alright, maybe not that old," Jareth said with a slight roll of his eyes. "So, precious," Jareth started as he pulled Sarah onto his lap. "Do you love me?"

"No."

"I lo… Wait, what? What happened to all of that by my dead-bed confession of love?"

"You were lying on my driveway, and you were only out for a minute or two," Sarah said with a roll of her eyes. "And, I've seriously only been with you for two weeks now. I think that the beauty was with the beast for a couple of months."

"Months? Sarah, I think that I'm going to take a page out from Cupid's playbook and just bed you instead. But, the beauty of the matter would be that, since you already know what my face looks like, I would not cast you out for wanting to gaze upon me."

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" Sarah snapped at him as she struggled to get free from Jareth's grasp. Jareth kissed Sarah's temple and then moved her so that she was sitting on the cushion next to him, and put her feet back on his lap.

"'Once upon a time, in a far off land lived a ship merchant with three, beautiful daughters…'"

* * *

Greggory Cameron tossed and turned in his bed, unable to find a position that was comfortable. Something knocked gently at his window, and he turned his back to it with a little bit of trepidation. But the knocking persisted, and became more and more frantic the longer Greg ignored it.

Finally, he kicked off his blankets and reached for the lamp on his bedside table; he turned the knob once, twice, three times, but it wouldn't come on. He looked nervously over to his dresser, and was greeted by a blank, black box where his digital alarm clock normally sat. Power outage.

The knocking, which had paused when Greg had kicked his blankets off, started up again. If there had been a tree in the yard, Greg probably would have thought it was that. But, the only thing in the yard was yellowing crab grass.

Greg walked nervously over to the window, and when he was about a foot away, it burst open with a massive gust of wind. "Hello, Greggory."

Greg fell onto the floor with a startled yip. "It's you!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, it is indeed me," Jareth said with a coy but evil smirk. "You grievously injured the Goblin King, and made my fiancee, the future Goblin Queen, cry. A lot."

"Man, you are completely bat-shit crazy," Greg said as he scrambled to his feet.

"Oh, I am?" Jareth asked. He conjured up a crystal and gazed into it. "I talked to Sarah about what we should do with you for a while. I was fairly certain that she'd want me to be lenient on you, but, much to my surprise, the things I had in mind for you seemed tame by what she suggested for you."

"You're crazy! Sarah would never agree to go out with somebody like you, let alone agree to marry you."

"Alas, you are correct, but that is only because I have not asked her quite yet," Jareth said with a wistful sigh. The crystal in his hands turned into a snake, which he then threw at Greg without warning. Greg winced, ducked, and then tripped over something unseen. He stumbled and fell, and used his hands to break his fall, but roughly scrapped them against something.

When he opened his eyes, he looked around him in alarm. A massive labyrinth spread out before him. "I've decided to go with my idea first, because I think that it will greatly amuse Sarah to watch you squirm," Jareth said as he appeared before the young man. Greg looked up at Jareth with sudden fear.

"W-who are you, man?"

"I am Jareth, the Goblin King. At the center of my Labyrinth is my castle." Jareth pointed to the castle off in the distance. "If you can reach the castle in 13 hours, you may return home, to your bed."

"And if I fail?" Greg asked with a hint of complete despair in his voice. Jareth looked down at Greg as if the younger male was something unpleasant that the Goblin King had just stepped in.

"Don't fail," Jareth said simply before he vanished.

* * *

A slight noise awoke Sarah. She stretched lazily and ran her fingers along the red, satin bedsheets before she turned to try and find where Jareth had gone. "Precious? Are you awake?" Jareth asked as he came into the room.

"I am now," Sarah said as she sat up in bed.

"I'm pleased to report to you that a new Holy Emperor has been crowned as of five minutes ago," Jareth said as he walked closer to his bed where Sarah was sitting. "And then I sent him home to let him stew in what he's done."

"The only thing I regret is the fact that you unleashed him into the world full of innocent people who did nothing to deserve having to smell him," Sarah said with a quiet laugh.

"I might bring him back to rule over his kingdom. …Eventually." Jareth leaned over Sarah and cupped her face between her hands so that she would look up at him. "So, precious. Do you love me?"

"No."

"What? Why not?"

"I think I need more convincing," Sarah said coyly. Jareth presented her with a red chrysanthemum, which she took, and looked up at him with a questioning look. "You run out of red roses or something?"

"There is more than one flower that speaks of love, precious," Jareth said before he pressed his lips to her. "If you are in need of more convincing, I have only just begun to show you what I am capable of." He kissed her again.

* * *

So, I'm certain that many people noticed that this chapter is probably about half as long as the other.

For reasons not even I can explain, I wrote a sex scene, and then decided to upload it separately, mostly because I didn't want to change the rating for this on the last chapter.

It doesn't really add anything to what you just read, so please don't feel obligated to go and read it. It's titled Sarah and the King: Bonus Content.

Thank you all for reading, and if anybody is interested in seeing more of my stuff, I'm currently working on another Labyrinth fic, which will probably be a lot longer than this. With any luck, it should be up in a day or two.

Thank you all so much for reading my humble story!


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